To Capitalize on the Sneaker Resale Market

Sneakers have been a passion for me since I can remember. Those days I would send window shopping, looking at the few pairs I would love to have and wear. At the time, now and again I would have a few blessings, I remember my mother always doing her best to make sure I was taken care of when it came to pairs for school. She would make sure I looked my best for the first day of school. Those were the times of I thought of the next pair I would wear for the upcoming school year. There’s nothing better than pulling up to school with your school uniform on and the newest, freshest, cleanest pair of kicks you got on. Nothing better than friends complementing the most fly kicks you have on your feet, it brings me joy like no other. You think of ways of rekindling that moment, and so you pick a job, summertime usually because that’s the only amount of time you usually have free to work. With that people can earn money to help grow and build their passion for sneakers and collect more pairs. With the internet being more advanced you're able to express yourself to the world and learn ways to take your passion forward with sneakers. This is the new evolution of sneaker culture, the buying collecting, and reselling of sneakers to the marketing place. This is the reselling of sneakers.

Start with an example let’s call this Brick vs Kicks,

in this example that’s shown we have a pair of Nike Air 90 Max Duck Camo and right next to it we have a brick, and I want to ask you a question. What costs more, the brick or the kicks? People would the kicks. But what if I told you that brick cost more?

Retail prices are at $190 but resale which is important to the topic prices it at $136 (2021).

And for the brick, you could probably go to Lowe’s type hardware store right now a pick up a brick for no more than $1. This Brick cost the amount of $210.

That’s right....a Brick...For $210.

Yes, you maybe asking yourself the same question, ‘Why some much money for a brick?’ Well fellow people it’s the same thing that’s always been happening for years now, what the people now understand as the ‘hype’ around particular brands, deals, celebrities, etc. similarly but if you have something of value that everyone wants and is willing to exchange real currency for, you created value to an item, you’ve created the hype. And the hype around this brick is like no other, the brick itself is just a brick but a carving of words onto it. It was created by a streetwear company name Supreme and like many streetwear companies before such as Nike, Adidas, Off-White, Stüssy, Undefeated, etc. they became synonymous with culture and youth and people hang on the ideas of Supreme in a way that’s fashion forward. This lead to lines across the block waiting for the release of clothing or gear for people to purchase, and websites crashing when releases drop and yes that includes the brick selling out. What does that mean for the consumer? In most to all cases, consumers are not able to get the high-value sought-after pieces. This should remind you of the concept of supply and demand. Are you familiar with the supply and demand method?

So what happens when you have a sought-after product that’s limited and everyone demands it? The answer, the value of the product goes up. The company set a price that people are willing to pay. At the same, if the price is too high then people won’t buy it, but if you have hype around a product and people are willing to buy it, you can make money. This especially happens when products are in limited supply, and people are willing to pay after-market prices to access the item. Supreme can sell for the original retail price and people who know the market value will grow up and can sell for another price afterward once the item sold by a company is ultimately higher than the retail price. It’s called reselling and people can capitalize making millions and billions of dollars into this market value and putting back into their own pockets. My question to you is that something you would be interested in doing?

To resale is to purchase goods or services intending to sell them rather than consume or use them. With the goal being receiving the product at the lowest margin possible and selling them at a high margin, only by breaking even and getting a higher return on money when purchasing the item you can consider it a profit, anything less you can consider it as a loss. This business can be individuals or companies working to resell the product in the market. Companies like eBay, StockX, or Goat are third-party websites to act as the middle-person to insure the authenticity of the individual who is looking and willing to pay. People are more than welcome to do it on their own sometimes posting items of product on the internet to let people know you have items sold on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook Marketplace, and OfferUp. To pulling up to sneaker-related events like SneakerCon and making stands for people to buy, sell, and trade kicks.

The question now is what are the best pairs to resell? Well, it’s the one that would collect the most hype. People sell a product that doesn’t generate much hype but it would more effort and a lot more product to break even. The hype around a product can make your profit go up higher. For example, a known artist that attaches to a product generates more resell value. We’re talking about the Travis Scott, Beyoncé, and Drake celebrities who are they’re being attached to products would results in fans doing the most to asset those even pay top dollar. The best explanations are musicals but you can get this kind of buzz from fandom in everything. BTS is a K-pop group but they’re known worldwide. If you put Jimin in collaborations with a streetwear brand like Nike both well known and the hype around whatever product they come with it would be crazy. The product they would have created would sell out immediately and people would have to pay top dollar to obtain whatever they made. Travis Scott has done several collaborations with companies, and all sold out immediately. Scott has even done stuff that you would call ridiculous like having your own Travis Scott meal at McDonald's. Now don’t think you can just go out and resell a happy meal but it gives an idea of what happens buzz gets around and everyone interested.

The Travis Scott meal at McDonald's — medium Sprite, quarter pounder with bacon, and fries with barbecue sauce.

Getting back to sneakers the hype around really does matter. Travis Scott is one of the best explanations of this because the sneaker he Collab with Nike that balloon and went crazy. Travis Scott Jordan 1 was originally released on May 11, 2019, with a retail of $150, it immediately flew the shelves and was quickly placed on resell website for upwards of $2000.

It’s safe to say the hype is real. According to the article from Grey Journal, “February 2021 research firm Piper Sandler estimated the market was worth an eye-popping $10 billion — a $4 billion increase from 2019” (Grey Journal 2022). And only plans to go up even higher. Again for Grey Journal, “Cowen Equity Research says that the sneaker market could be worth $30 billion by 2030” (Grey Journal 2022). Would you want a slice of that pie?

Overall, we can sum it up to its passion for pursuing. Image sending all your life collecting sneakers and feeling like you have nothing to show for it. A lot of times we look at ourselves in the mirror and think of what a waste of time and money trivial these items are to us, or maybe just other people made us feel that way. Now more than ever people are moving away from the traditional route when it comes to jobs and careers and forging a new pathway that is outside of the norm. People shouldn’t be bound to the idea of normal and embrace the idea of creativity. Turning your passion into profits. For sneakers, if that’s something you want to do then you better jump on it now because there’s a lot of money to make out here on this journey. I plan to get my piece of that pie. To capitalize on the sneaker resale market.

Works Cited

Mudrak, James. “Global Sneaker Resale Market Estimated At $6 Billion.” GREY Journal, https://greyjournal.net/hustle/finance/global-sneaker-resale-market-estimated-at-6-billion/. Accessed 9 January 2023.

“Travis Scott Air Jordan 1 Official Release Date | sneakerNews.com.” Sneaker News, 30 April 2019, https://sneakernews.com/2019/04/30/travis-scott-air-jordan-1-official-release-date/. Accessed 9 January 2023.