Can you think of a use for an unpaired left shoe?

Off the top of my head, I cannot. A left shoe only has value to me if I have the corresponding right pair. In economics terms, this is because left and right shoes are perfect complements.

But I am in fact wrong. An unpaired left shoe does have value. It took a clever businessman in India to discover this, but an unpaired left shoe has value precisely because no one thinks it has value.

The application is clever, and I learned about it from a story by Fred Flaxman in the Stanford alum magazine:

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"All will be well if you use your mind for your decisions, and mind only your decisions." Since 2007, I have devoted my life to sharing the joy of game theory and mathematics. MindYourDecisions now has over 1,000 free articles with no ads thanks to community support! Help out and get early access to posts with a pledge on Patreon. .

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In the 1950s, Americans still manufactured things, and Indians were eager to purchase some of them. But import duties greatly reduced the profit margins of importers. However, if items–say, a load of tennis shoes–arrived at Indian customs and were not claimed by anyone within 30 days, they would be auctioned off. My friend’s father ordered a huge shipment of sneakers from a U.S. company with the stipulation that all the left-footed shoes be packaged separately from all the right-footed shoes. The left-footed shoes were to be shipped to Bombay, and 60 days later the right-footed shoes were to be shipped to Calcutta. The shipment sent to Bombay went unclaimed, so after 30 days it was auctioned off. Because no one could think of a use for a huge shipment of left-footed sneakers, no one bid against my friend’s father and he picked up these shoes for next to nothing. The situation was repeated with the right-footed sneakers in Calcutta. My friend’s father paired the shoes and made the kind of money that sent his son to a fine American university.

The strategy is ingenious, and it reminds me that a savvy businessperson is someone that can see value where others see none.

(And just a bit of closing trivia. Someone told me there is a Hindi film set in the 90s about Reebok shoes with exactly the same plot line (plus a love story, of course) called Badmaash Company)