Why are shoe size numbers consistent but the actual shoe size varies per brand?

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Shoe brands typically use the same number scale, but when you compare the actual size of shoes, the sizes are all over the place. Wouldn’t it make more sense to all agree on a set measurable size to make it easier on the customer to make a purchase?

Example: in US sizing, a 10.5 in one brand is the same as a 10 or an 11 in another brand.

In: 32

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Source: My wife was a quality assurance expert for some shoe factories in Mexico.

The thing that I think a lot of people believe is that, when they’re buying a particular brand, they’re buying a fully in-house product, from the design to the manufacture. This isn’t true. In reality, lots of different shoe designers, who make their money by holding the patents on shoe designs, contract with brands and factories to actually make the shoes. The industry standards that determine the minimum durability and such don’t really broach the topic of size, namely because sizing is a very inaccurate way to determine whether a shoe matches a particular foot type. It’s more of a consumer-driven heuristic, and as long as you’re within one size up or down on that scale, it’s considered accurate enough.

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