RIP Resellers... Why Greed and Monotony Are Killing the Game
I’ve choked on my Wheaties a few times over the 20 years I’ve been writing about shoes, but the sight of Trump at Sneaker Con spruiking his ‘Air Treason’ high tops has to be the most batshit crazy moment of all time. As many have suggested since, the entire whooha looked suspiciously like an episode of . It’s also being interpreted by some as a nail in the coffin of a once-booming sub-culture.
‘Sneakers are dead’ is now an official trending meme (especially among ex-journos jaded from the sudden lack of free shoes), but let’s put things in perspective. are not going down the gurgler any time soon – even if they are guilty of producing a recent with unforgivably laced up in his old boots.
However, the current chatter that the Air Force 1 has crashed, Jordan 1s are done and Dunks are dusted is an accurate reflection of reality. Despite facing minimal pressure from their main competitor, Nike’s lackadaisical product management has ensured their holy trinity of heavy hitters are totally played out. After years of sales domination, the fact that all three need a serious snooze to regain their lustre is a totally natural product-cycle phenomenon, yet the sentiment seems to be that it’s a signifier that something darker is afoot. Is there a goldenrod canary in the coal mine?
Ummm… maybe, maybe not.
Into the Void
Without change, fashion (including sneakers) is inherently one-dimensional and a dead-end street. Limitless creativity, coupled with consumer vitality, is what inspires the rise of micro trends and generational style shifts. Friction creates heat, energy and progression, but it can also leave a void behind if nothing juicy replaces what came before.
The truth is – for myriad reasons including rampant greed, generational flux, the lack of design innovation and the reliance on tired retro warriors – the game suddenly finds itself on the back foot. Far from seeing this as a ‘death’, I think it’s a gift – a rare opportunity and a long overdue moment. Following 20 years of unchecked global growth, it’s time to reset and fundamentally rethink the way sneaker business is done.
What’s way more interesting, from a perspective, is the idea that sneaker reselling has suddenly crapped out. Admittedly, this is not a new idea. If you , you’ll find dozens of clickbaity stories breathlessly reporting that sneaker reselling is now a ‘multi-gazillion dollar business’ chockablock with wealthy tweenage hustlers and gangster grandmas flipping retro Jays for big bucks... blah, blah, blah. Now, all of a sudden – quelle horreur! – the ass has dropped out because Nike made too many shoes and bots don’t work like they used to. :) One recent article even lamented the passing of the ‘golden era of reselling’, as if that was some pivotal moment in time that we should all grieve.
Fuck that.
The idea that booming reselling is a barometer of success in the sneakerworld is insanity, but it’s a surprisingly common view. (I’ve seen plenty of internal brand decks that trumpet street prices as evidence of a project’s success). This idiotic logic is the end game of exponential growth at all costs and proof once more – as if we ever needed it – that ‘greed is good’. (Side note: who TF are all these people supposedly paying $5000 for Dunks etc? This has long perplexed me!)
As the idea of sneaker reselling became normalised over the last decade, millennial kids grew up on the idea that paying two to three times retail is standard practice. Call me crazy and an old-fashioned coot (don’t BTW), but it wasn’t the case in my day and shouldn’t be now. Wishful thinking perhaps, but I’d much rather fans are able to buy shoes at accessible prices and not pay hustlers a profit for the privilege. One more thing I might add… I’d also love to be able to walk into a proper sneaker store – not a reseller’s paradise – and see cool shoes that are actually available on the shelf. Imagine that!
Many of our loyal readers would happily dance on the reseller gravestone (if there was one), but for independent stores and brands, the implications of their demise are far from clear. As we’ve seen with several recent high profile colabs that failed to fire and then sat like bricks ( and ), it’s not a good look when every size is still available a few days after release, or even worse, they are consigned to the sale bin. The optics are poor, for Nike in particular, but honestly, if any brand produces a dud shoe in poor materials, with no honest reason to exist, and lame marketing assets… it deserves brick status.
And let’s face it, Nike is the reseller brand. All those Dunks, Jordans and Forces pretty much bankroll the entire scene. Even with 23 per cent yearly growth over at New Balance and and Teddy Santis leading the charge, they are still a small player in this realm. And while the Samba and Gazelle fly off shelves for adidas, they are not where the money is at. Say what you like about Yeezy, the product team played the game better than most with shifting volumes, maintaining steady interest and strong sales. On the other hand, Yeezy Supply was notoriously accommodating of bots and the leaky back doors funded many a reseller’s dreams.
But not anymore.
Speaking of which, the bring back of the Yeezy 350 v2 in ‘Steel Grey’ recently backfired on adidas, who clearly did not anticipate the tumbleweeds that greeted its debut on the Confirmed app. Did the adi team simply get greedy, or were sneakerheads too savvy to agree to the new raffle policy that upfront? Or was it Ye’s rant that the unYeezy-branded shoes are fake that put followers off? All three are factors, but the simplest explanation is that the 350 is well past its prime and the lazy all-grey concoction is no one’s idea of an excitement machine. Boring!
Be Careful What You Wish For
A fragile global economy is dragging everyone down in 2024. COVID hangovers, geo-political conflict, mortgage stress, cost-of-living blowouts, supply chain opportunism and job instability are all real-world crises that pressurise household expenditure.
It’s no surprise therefore that triggers are not automatically pulled when there are so many releases available and price tags have risen from $200 to $300 seemingly overnight. With demand softening and FOMO evaporating fast, the smart sneakerhead move is to wait it out until shoes go on sale. Contrary to ‘popular’ opinion, thinking twice before splashing cash on yet another pair of shoes is actually a good thing.
But not if you’re in the reseller game.
Finding the happy balance between supply and demand has been an ongoing industry battle for decades. In the early years of Sneaker Freaker, from 2002 to 2008, the scene was small and the idea of making millions from so-called ‘LE’ releases was bananas. Size runs were low – often ludicrously so – to the point where everyone spent most of their time bitching on forums about how impossible it was to find a decent pair of Dunk SBs. A run of 24 to 36 pairs was not uncommon, but 500 to 1000 was more likely. This period was all about creating something cool to stimulate the growing global community of footwear obsessives.
By the early 2010s, several prominent figures, most notably Ronnie Fieg at Kith, had cracked the code. With loyal social followings and unlimited colab access, production runs went from 2000 to 5000 to 20,000 in no time. The market was pumping and consumer appetite seemed limitless as shoes sold out instantly and everyone made bank. This period also marks the introduction of bots, cook groups and the use of technology to manipulate the sales process. I’ll take an educated guess and contend that at least 20-30 per cent of all heat releases in this period were gobbled up by resellers. On some over-hyped shoes, it was even higher.
Fast Forward to 2024.
Thanks to the folks at , retailers now have a smart technology solution to combat the 'botulism' crisis. In response to everyone bellyaching about how hard it is to buy Dunks and Jordan 1s, Nike produces more. A lot more. All of a sudden, the sneaker market is ‘saturated’. But what does that really mean?
Here’s how I break it down:
- Too many sneaker releases
- Production numbers too high
- Buyer financial stress
- Nike not on their game
- Generational change
- Too many resellers
- Not enough resellers
You won’t find much argument over 1 to 5. Numbers 6 and 7 would appear a contradiction, but here’s my theory. From 2012 to 2022, the reseller craze consistently picked up pace, sprawling and mutating before it finally spat out heavyweight investments in the form of industrial scale reselling platforms.
Below that, scores of indie reseller stores opened in pretty much every mall in the entire universe. And guess what? They all pretty much (aside from , shout out for their eclectic vintage rotation) sold the same exact shoes. Racks and racks and racks and racks and racks of Jordan ‘Whatevers’ and ‘Wannabe’ Dunks in every size and colour, stacked in quadruplicate and more, overloading shelves until they groaned under their own corny weight.
Like Monty Python’s creation Mr Creosote, the ‘wafer thin’ gluttony was only going to end one way and it was not going be pretty when the dam burst.
Which it has.
Numbers Game
Since production numbers are forecast 12-18 months before shoes hit shelves, dialling in spreadsheets accurately is paramount for brands and retailers, especially in shaky times. In years of bullish growth, the temptation to up numbers by double digits often proves irresistible. When things are great, this is gravy, but last year’s data only works with a stable economy and a linear demand curve.
Which means a lot of decisions made prior to the Great Blip are now looking wildly optimistic. Disastrously optimistic. As the unsold stock piles up in warehouses, where it eventually goes, nobody really knows. In the case of colabs and high-profile releases, their premium cachet means they can’t be discounted publicly, so they have to be withdrawn from sale, only to reappear as… And if that doesn’t work, they just do it all over again.
The excess is either warehoused, sent to (I kid you not) landfill, burned (sad but true) or quietly exported to someplace exotic where no one notices. I’ve heard many a story of containers full of big-name shoes on their way to Russia and China. Or they are gobbled up at serious discount by… resellers. Unofficially, of course.
To simplify, there are way too many shoes and way not enough buyers, which is far from an optimal business model. For their part, resellers suddenly realised in mid-2023 that holding onto pairs represents serious financial risk. Many simply offloaded their inventory and tapped out, shutting down the bots and raffle jiggers they used to scoop up multiple pairs. And that, on top of everything else happening in the economy, and especially at Nike, is a problem.
I see this as an opportunity to rethink and rebuild.
Dodgy Dealings
Unsavoury characters and social dramas have also done untold damage to community confidence. Attracted by the buzz generated in a booming market, criminals, , deadbeats, bullshitters and scammers can smell easy money from miles away. On the retail side, tales of indie stores have been common over the last few years (with zero apparent ramifications), as were those reselling allegations levelled . StockX has been bedevilled since day one with accusations they sell counterfeit products.
Over the last few months alone, high-profile reseller sites in Europe like Restocks and Kikikickz have gone bust, leaving both buyers and sellers out of pocket. The fraud – estimated at over $80 million – was by far the biggest implosion, but there are umpteen thousands of individual buyers who were sent fake shoes or had their cash straight-up stolen over the last few years.
Expect more of the same.
Violent stick-ups after sneaker trading events and house/storage break-ins are both, sadly, common occurrences. Several interviewees from preferred to stay anonymous and are exceedingly cautious about their whereabouts – a sad reflection of their genuine fear. I personally know several collectors who have lost serious amounts of shoes in targeted attacks. On some occasions, the same crew came back more than once to finish the job. The crushing sense of loss was compounded when the stolen shoes immediately turned up on major reseller platforms.
That overall loss of community confidence and trust – for all the reasons listed – amplifies the perceptions of average punters that they are being exploited, extorted and manipulated by a rigged system. Throw in endless Ls from bots and cooked raffles and you can see why anxiety and resistance is rising.
Snafu.
Generation StockX
2024 is also a time of generational flux. The nostalgic whims of OG sneakerheads (aged 35 to 50) no longer drive the youth end of the market. Economic uncertainty and a new generation who aren’t noticeably hooked on classics from yesteryear have created an awkward puzzle that brands need to solve in a hurry.
Periodic style shifts loom as another challenge. As traditional sport and WFH comfort segues into more formal territory, lifestyle brands like Clarks and Doc Martens will once again have a moment. The timing of the new Tyler, the Creator colab with Louis Vuitton on a in pastel colours is a harbinger. New Balance’s upcoming 1906 Loafer is another nod in the same direction. Older readers might also remember the lo-fi stylings of , helmed by Gareth Skewis before he started Palace. Could we see a new contender emerge in the ‘grown-up sneaker’ category?
Probably not.
Finale
The whole idea of ‘sneakers’ has become so insanely commercialised it has warped expectations and frayed the social fabric that keeps the 'heart and sole' community alive and thriving.
There’s no doubt that resellers, like buzzards and hyenas, will always have a (hopefully limited) role to play in the ecosystem, but I don’t see any need to lament their current comeuppance. At this point in time, they are simply moving on to feast on whatever makes a profit... Stussy clothing, Stanley drink bottles, and fake concert tickets for Swifties. When the sneaker world gets its mojo back and the profits look easy once more, they’ll no doubt return in droves.
I don’t have all the answers, but here’s a start. More fun please! While the glory days of campouts won’t return soon, any endeavours to reward and entertain the true fans are to be applauded. Have to skate out the door in your new Dunks? Bravo! Hit a three-pointer to nab those new adidas AE 1? Swish! Anything that puts a smile on the dial and enhances human connection is a step in the right direction. As we saw with the recent Jordan 4 ‘Bred Reimagined' release at the 2024 Summer Jam festival in Melbourne, enabling purchase via a simple QR code that was only visible to attendees was an unexpected Easter egg for loyalists. It’s not rocket science, so let’s loosen up and see more of that IRL investment in the people that really matter.
The diehards, not resellers.
For anyone who wants to buy a decent pair at a decent price without jumping through flaming hoops, selling a kidney or paying 3 x retail, 2024 looms as a return to good times. Prices may have risen, but resellers have retreated, bots have been nullified (to some extent), competition is lower and brands are finally making enough shoes to satisfy demand. Fuggedallabout FOMO, taking your time is the New Luxury!
As I was looking for a neat way to wrap things up, a few words from – written back in 2018 – twitched my eye. ‘And so the sneaker wars go on. Ground won today is easily lost tomorrow. Nike may have wrested back control from adidas, but for how long? Attention spans are shorter than ever and the cycle of life for any new design has gone from a few years to a few measly months. As history has shown, nothing lasts forever in the sneaker game.’
Funny that.