Do what works for you.

I do not keep cardboard boxes; I prefer to use a shoe cubby.

I ditch the boxes and put the shoes in a set of cloth shoe pockets.

But I don't have much in the way of storage space.

If I had space, I'd put them in little clear cubbies, so I didn't have to fiddle with the box in order to get the shoe out.

(Cubbyholes are my absolute favorite storage solution, for "organized-ness"--though not necessarily the best when you need to keep things completely dust-free, though they do cut down on dust a lot. Pockets are simply vertical cubbies. After cubbies is drawers. Boxes w/ lids are way down there, at least for anything I want to access very often.)

If you do store the shoes in their boxes, either put a picture of the shoes on the outside of the box, or label the box very clearly, in large letters, with the shoe that's inside: "5 inch black killer pumps," "brown shoes for taffeta dress." Otherwise, you won't remember what you have in there.

But in general, it's better to be able to see all your things.

I've been doing what camlan suggests. I have lots of shoes, some (tall boots) are for winter only, for dress-up occasions, etc. So I stack them on top shelf with 'description' on the side. I never had a hard time finding a shoe when I need it. But it allows me to have only half of my shoes in the immediate access area in the closet.

Every winter and summer, it forces me to do inventory and re-evaluation, while I rotate summer/winter selection.

At Payless Shoes, they keep their extra pairs way up above, and they have a cool tool that they use to get the extra box down. If I kept my shoes in boxes up above in my closet, I'd go to Payless and try to talk the manager into helping me buy one.

Ditching the boxes and shopping for a shoe cubby. However, I plan to do something with the boxes. It seems that as a kid we used boxes for craft projects at school, and since my shoes came off the rack, we never had a shoe box. Surely a pre-school can use them? Thanks!