I had recently purchased some new dress shoes that were not wide enough.  So I used this stretcher with excellent results.  I did not have to stretch the length of the shoe at all as this would have been a bit more of a challenge. The rear wood part doesn't just flip into place in shoe.  I would have had to disassemble it and re-assemble in the shoe.

In all I believe most people will use a shoe stretcher to increase the width and this performed excellent.