My visit to the Mall

As most of you know from our assortment we carry @ ATEAM, we pride ourselves on finding companies who have great product, excellent in style and rich in heritage. People come to ATEAM for our 'alternative' collection in search of something different and not what everyone else has.

With that said, I was with my family yesterday and made a trip to the mall, which is something we seldom do. To my astonishment as I ventured through all the stores with footwear (Finish Line, FootLocker, Champs, Shiekh's, Tilly's, Zumiez, etc.) I found the EXACT SAME selection in EVERY store!! Not only that, but the few people scattered around the mall, were identical to each other, wearing the same shoes and acting like Lemmings. Not to point out which store carried what but the over-abundance of Nike, Converse, Vans, Creative Recreation and other 'main-stream' product made me sad! These are brands a couple of years ago I thought were on the fore-front of the footwear game. Now they are everywhere and ANY ONE can get them. There is nothing exclusive about that! Let alone the quality of the goods were atrocious and when a company decides to sell to the masses, quality and cost are the first key ingredients which are neglected. In addition, when these companies decide to focus on the big-box stores and 'forget' about the core sneaker shops that put them on the map, it is practically impossible to get any back end customer service when 'they' are dealing with multi-million dollar accounts with A LOT needs and support.

Please don't take this as an 'Anti-Mall' post as I know the malls have a place for a lot of people, but I am affirming the direction of ATEAM and our product selection to have shoes you WILL NOT see at the mall and on every person lurking around their specific levels of the establishment.

ATEAM will continue to bring you new product, historic brands and QUALITY, COMFORTABLE footwear that doesn't need a 'puppet' or mass-advertising to 'convince' you they are good shoes. Stand out, stand up and BE ORIGINAL!