I travel 30 odd miles to go to a shop to buy my running shoes. I am a jogger / slow jogger. What I like about Running Bear (in Alderly Edge, Cheshire, UK ), is the no fuss advice. They look at your old trainers, ask what you run, they select a pair from the rack, get you to run up and down the street in them a couple of times looking at your gait, then back inside where they say, you could also try this, this and that, they will all suit your running.
About 15 years ago trainers moved from footwear for exercise, to footwear for fashion and at the time I was teaching 14 packed classes of aerobics a week. I used to take a bunch of people to sports shoes shops to buy trainers and give them what advice I could. Over the 5 years I saw the members of staff dumb down their sports specific knowledge and the footwear become more about the colour and branding, than whether it had arch support.
Anyway, rant over. Hats off to Running Bear.