Difficult sizes are a challenge, my son is 6'7" and has size 15 feet. He plays Canadian university basketball and I have to buy all of his court shoes online from US vendors. Apparently Canadians don't have size 15 feet so you can't get them anywhere in the entire country. That means I need to pay shipping, FX and rarely get any discounts - he wears only certain shoes so I can't troll the discount bins. A visit to the shoe store with him doesn't entail browsing the selection, choosing a shoe and asking the salesperson to bring you that in a 15. You enter the store, go directly to the sales person and ask if they have anything in a 15. Usually the answer is no or, if you're lucky they'll bring out one or two pairs of butt ugly shoes and he picks one.
Mark
Mark