You See Sneakers, These Guys See Hundreds of Millions in Resale Profit | Hacker News Reader

You See Sneakers, These Guys See Hundreds of Millions in Resale Profit

fivethirtyeight.com

80 pointsmblevin21 comments

Nike is masterful at making its brand appeal to the very hip and the very lame.

Go to a kids soccer game, you'll see dads wearing Nikes. Go to a hollywood red carpet event, you'll see stars wearing Nikes. Different models of course, but nike has a shoe for everybody.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out Apple studied Nike's approach when they first made the s3 available for super cheap with a contract. Maintaining luxury status, and selling to everyone just seems impossible. Nike is one of the very few successes.

Tim Cook is a Nike board member.

Ah, the Apple S3.

It seems like they are making the shoes a luxury item by restricting the supply while making the designs very unique. It becomes almost like a bespoke or custom-made item because of the rarity.

Kanye addressed this practice in some of his interviews where he called out Nike for setting a high price point for his Air Yeezys and only making a small number even though the demand was high.

He apparently switched to Adidas where his shoe design will be more widely available. I'm curious to see how well a popular, uniquely designed shoe that isnt restricted in supply can compete with the limited edition variety.

To each his own I guess but I'll never understand the appeal of this.

I think that all collectors are slightly strange to people outside the group. Coins, guns, action figures, baseball cards, comic books, you name it - there's going to be a group of people spending a very large amount of money to get a big or rare collection of it.

Personally, I think that spending money for artificially scarce products is a little silly, but I can think of worse things to spend money on. At least these collectors can recoup their costs if they decide to stop.

I understand collecting. Everything you named I can see the alure. I would add cars, watches, guitars, marbles, etc., but tennis shoes? Or, I could be out of the demographics? Maybe women are attracted to guys who wear Nikes? That whole Peacocking thing, "I fresh, young, and full of ---?" If it's the latter; I get it!

Michael Jordan and LeBron James are associated with basketball. Referring to sneakers as "tennis shoes" suggests perhaps you are not in a targeted segment of the market.

And the comic book collectors in the 90s? Just because you can recoup your investment now while the market is robust, doesn't mean you can in the future. That being said, I think sneakers have a lot more staying power than comic books since you can at least wear them out and be coveted.

I'm going to say that, for some at least, fetishism is probably a part of the underlying lure.

I find it hard to completely disconnect the passion some people have for footwear from some form of foot fetishism.

Not saying it's necessarily the main drive, but it certainly can't be dismissed as an underlying force that can seduce some into buying lots of shoes.

Related NYTimes article from April 2014: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/business/a-thriving-market...

If only some of the money would end up in the hands of the young female factory workers who are struggling to make a decent living.

Counting the time spent in line and the efforts to re-sell them, is it really worth it?

From the friendly article:

Given how much time he had spent in line, however, I wondered how he felt about earning the equivalent of minimum wage.

No problem, he said. He’s hoping to start his own consignment shop and sees the long waits as practice toward delivering on his promises.

“For me, I think it’s worth it.”

It's worth it if you like wearing sneakers. For every exclusive shoe that you buy to flip, you probably find a rare pair to wear.

Just like Magic cards, I guess.

Magic (at present) is a bit different in that the manufacturer will print effectively unlimited amounts of the cards for the 6-12 months a set is in print, and will actively seek to reprint staple cards that get expensive enough to make them difficult to acquire for play. The few limited-run products they produce can get a bit silly though, yes.

Eh. It doesn't seem a whole lot different than how they're 'reprinting' Air Jordans.

It's remarkable how similar each collectible market it. I run a magic card pricing site (http://www.mtgprice.com) and I'm amazed at how much alike the market for sneakers, coins and comic books is.

I guess people are wealthy enough to spend this kind of money on a collectible (or get worn out if you actually use it.)?

Ah the good ole' Yeezy 2s. They're legendary and yet I'll only ever be able to afford a replica pair.

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