Why are 12 and a half size shoes so hard to find?

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This is the shoe size I wear and I often have trouble finding shoes this size. Do I really have such a rare size of foot?

At one shoe store I went to, someone even claimed that the size 12 and a half in shoes is skipped. I know that is false.

And is that both feet

That is my size for both feet.

If I try to wear size 12 it is too tight. If I try size 13 it is too loose.

And can you usually buy shoes that size from a regular shoe shop

Stores often cater to certain sizes.
It is a lot easier to find women's clothes in smaller sizes and harder to find them in larger sizes.
If your feet are small it can be a lot easier to find women's size 7 instead of men's size 5, which are often exactly the same size.
Payless was a store that used to sell a lot of big women's shoes.

Yes.

I can't recall ever seeing size 12.5 in any typical shoe store or sporting goods/athletic shoe store. Ever. I would imagine they're available from Very Expensive brands & any shoe company that Custom makes shoes and boots for big $$$.

It must be too rare to bother with the moulds and production to make the soles etc. If there were high enough demand, then they would be produced and sold. But since they're so rare and in such low demand, most shoe companies wouldn't make enough money selling them to pay off the tooling to produce them.. and stores wouldn't want to stock them to have inventory just sit on the shelf and take up space and cost money etc.

Your best bet is to look online to find a pair from a brand and style you know fit and have them shipped to you. eBay is a great source. At other times just google and find a pair. A couple years ago I wanted a particular pair of hiking shoes because I liked the colour scheme, but being a popular size 10.5 they were all sold out locally and across North America on websites... so I ordered them from a website store from Italy and had them shipped. But of a wast of greenhouse gases and all that, I know, but including shipping and tax they ended up costing about the same price as I'd have paid here if they were regular price on the shelf so I was okay with it to have the pair I wanted. It is definitely cheaper to pay to ship a pair of typically manufactured shoes from 1/2 way around the world than it is to pay a local shoemaker to custom make anything. (custom made work boots start at around $1000-1200 and up + tax for example.)

You should try finding size 16 shoes.

I find shoes that size at ordinary stores, but it takes a long time. I have to shop around all over the place, trying various stores before I can find a pair of shoes size 12.5. Shoes that are 12 wide work okay for me.

Shop online somewhere that accepts returns. Order several pairs, keep the ones you want, and return the rest. Save your time and gas driving all over hell's half acre looking for a rare shoe size.

This is not false - not only is it very common to skip half-sizes after size 12, but some shoes don't run in half-sizes at all.

Seriously?

How tall must you be

Size 16 shoes are very big shoes.

Too right. I could make my bed in a size 16 shoe

193 cm (6'4").
It makes life enormously difficult.

I bet it does. It'd annoy me keep bending down to get through doors and stuff