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In a story, widely circulated on the Russian internet, Nike (or Adidas, or any other major footwear manufacturer) faced a problem of pilfering on their new factories somewhere in the Third World.

When standard methods (increased security etc.) yielded no result, they contracted a freelance problem solver, who, after a brief thought, offered them to split production of left and right shoes across factories in two different countries. They did it and pilfering stopped.

This is usually presented as a good example of "thought outside the box", along with the NASA space pen and elevator on the outer wall.

Is it as false as those?

Quassnoi
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    Doesn't sound very realistic. Logistic cost to do that would out weight any reduction in pilfering. – vartec Jun 15 '12 at 10:28
  • The Nike shoes I'm currently wearing were both made in Vietnam. – Tom77 Jun 15 '12 at 12:19
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    This sounds like a Twix commercial. – reirab Feb 08 '16 at 20:05
  • The problem with this question is to prove that it NEVER happened. It might have happened once. It is simple to show that it is not done ALWAYS, simply check the stickers in a shop, looking for where they were made. Anecdotally, i have never seen a pair with different country of origin for the left and right shoe. – ghellquist Oct 04 '19 at 20:32
  • Intersting, this question was stolen for a blog: http://helicopter-view.com/blog/does-nike-produce-left-and-right-shoes-in-different-countries –  Jan 22 '21 at 20:01
  • @MichaelK: we should start posting questions in two parts on different sites, so that people would not be able to steal them – Quassnoi Jan 22 '21 at 21:17

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