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There is nothing like walking away from a store with a new pair of shoes - whether or not you ever get round to taking them out of the box. The average woman owns 20 pairs of shoes but only regularly wears five of them, a study has found. And nine in ten admit having at least one pair they have never taken out of the closet. More than 2,000 women were questioned in an attempt to get to the bottom of why they so regularly buy shoes they never wear. The most common reason was finding they are uncomfortable to wear out and about, with almost two thirds saying they bought shoes they couldn�t wear for being too tight or having impractical heels. More than half said they had bought footwear which was impossible to match with any of their outfits and four in ten splashed out on very expensive shoes they were then too scared to damage. One in three, meanwhile, hide shoes at the back of their closet which they were given as a gift and secretly hate. In total, the study found women spend an average of �490 on their shoe collections despite wearing only a quarter of them.