Men under 40 and passionate about athletic sports and urban culture are more prone to become sneaker heads than the rest of the population. The term “sneaker head” relates to people who are collecting and reselling sneakers. The first appealing sneakers are generally described as the 1985 Nike Air Jordan 1. For the collectors, it is essential to have the real item, not a copy or a post manufactured edition as it happened in October 2022. The craze for sneakers developed from 1985, due to the development of urban culture. This modern type of culture is linked with music like rap, basketball, and cities on a global scale.
How is it possible to make a profit from your passion for sneakers?
Young Americans do not care at all in the majority about how they look, they want comfort. This does not stop the enjoyment of finding and selling a rare pair of sneakers. The manufacturers understood very well the new craze and decided to sell limited editions, mostly through a “drop” system, that ressembles a lottery, or sometimes a “first at the shop, first served” offer. The matter about this new phenomenon is that you are not always available when the future favorite pair of your collection is being sold by the manufacturer, nor are you always the winner of the new drop of the pair you’d want to buy. So, the next matter will be to try to buy it from a luckier person. If you are contemplating selling, the issue is to know how much money you are making precisely.
The better platforms, such as StockX, are not free to sell on : they take a fee, because they offer advanced services. They not also put seller and buyers in relation, they estimate the right price for each item in each size. They do that by working an offer and demand algorithm, exactly like the stock exchange. This allows to sell your rare items at the right price, but also to understand trends and the virality of certain products. Of course, the stockx fees aren’t a flat rate, and you may need a calculator to know exactly how much money you’ll be making. StockX also has a service that authenticates the origins of each item sold through the platform. That allows to be sure you are not buying fakes, or as better known in those circles, “reps”. StockX does all of that, so the buyer and seller have every guaranty of trading at the right price and not being scammed. You can think of it like an escrow but with extra services.
Once you have an idea of how much money you will gain from your sale, you can make a proper decision about when and how much you are willing to sell. The whole principle is based on speculation, and the craze is spread worldwide. If we consider the American market, in 2021, men between 44 and 56 years old were designated as the age group spending the highest sums on shoes, with the average sum being described around 500 dollars. Once men have started to enjoy wearing stylish sneakers, they discuss with others and discover it leads to a passion for collecting special edition of their favourite shoes. The next step is to follow the trends and the peaks of the market, and if by luck someone owns a much sought after pair of sneakers, well, the benefits can be fascinating.
One sneaker-head explained to the media that he started to collect and resell at school to make money and help his family make ends meet. Today he has a real business, he can feel the market and get the best desired items. All this craze is due to that, firstly, sneakers are now the most worn shoes in the world. Let’s consider Asia, the United States and Europe, the biggest parts of the population are wearing sneakers. Since most of the world population is also wearing jeans, sneakers are the natural shoes to associate with denim. Another explanation comes from the need for comfort when running around, cycling or just walking. Plus there is a connotation with looking young, and nobody wants to look old, so, the solution is to wear sneakers. But the collectors are not going to wear the object of their admiration. If they do, they will give great care to the pair of sneakers, so as not to put dirt or even worse, to spoil the shoe. Like any other collectors, there is always the temptation to sell to make money and then to get the exceptional, pinnacle element of one’s collection. How would you know? There are many selling platforms, the total turn over of resale of sneakers reacher 6 billion dollars in 2021 on the earth. This is not a type of business to reject! The manufacturers are entertaining the dreams by launching limited editions on a regular basis. Some buyers will get a pair for their personal collection, others will buy to resell at the best moment for the best price. How to determine this best opportunity? Before all, you need to:
- identify the most sought models;
- buy straight away on the first day of the sales;
- buy several pairs.
It is recommended in general to sell one pair once the price has doubled. The point to keep the other pairs is a bet. As it is the same mechanism as a speculation, it is possible to lose the contemplated profits if all of a sudden the collectors are attracted by another model. But, to think clearly, it is not fully like a speculation, since the sneakers are still to be enjoyed and who knows? May be later on they will become again a central focus!