HOW TO OPEN A SNEAKER STORE

WORDS OF ADVICE

Alife Rivington: No matter what you are trying to sell, always know your game. Credibility is all you have. If you do not have that, you don’t have shit, which means you are not selling anything to anybody.

Premium Goods: If there is something you want to do, then just do it. Open a store, make t-shirts, whatever, just do it. Lots of people talk and never act. It’s better to do and fail than to not have tried.

Motive807: The thing I have noticed is that everything is starting to look the same.
I admire companies who do something original and break away from the norms. Hype is starting to kill the sneaker culture because it has driven prices out of the roof. There is going to be a point where consumers stop buying because everything costs so damn much. Companies also need to start looking at the quality of product that they are putting into the market. My advice to anyone looking at opening a store is to be patient. When dealing with big companies, you have to understand they work on their schedules, not yours. That can be very frustrating at times, but its something to get used to. Also, your customer needs to be taken care of as much as possible because without them, you will not have a store.

Goliath: Get experience in retail and start out selling. Learn about mark ups and everything else that goes along with the business side of things because behind all of the sneakers, there are lots of numbers.

DQM: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

ClassicKicks: Good luck to the newbies. Just continue to do what you love. We are not masters, but we get wiser as we get older. Yeah, we are busting our ass, but we are doing it for love. Sometimes you want to say ‘fuck it’ and go to the Bahamas, but you can’t. You have to stick with it, have a plan, do your homework and remember that it’s easier to go out of business than to stay in business.