Something Crazy to Think About
Would you believe me if I were to tell you that there’s an economy based around shoes? Because that's what I'm about to tell you. Some people are crazy over their shoes. Here are some examples:
- $15,000 on GOAT right now for Pharrell x NMDs 'Human Race' Friends & Family edition in my size (10)
- $50,000 on GOAT for Supreme x Louis Vuitton x Red Ribbon Recon x Air Jordan 1 Retro Highs
- $5,000 on StockX for Air Yeezy 2 Red Octobers
Hopefully I have your attention now.
StockX and GOAT
You may have not have known that shoes sell for thousands of dollars pretty frequently. The truth is a lot of people are big shoe fans who want to drop a lot of money on all kinds of shoes. They finally have an outlet to buy authentic shoes. The two services used most often are GOAT and StockX.
Both services act as a middle man where you purchase the shoes, they're then sent to the company and they verify that you're purchasing an authentic shoe. If you're spending a thousand dollars on a pair of shoes you want them to be the real deal. If you don't like the condition of used shoes even if they're authentic you can have them sent back. Once the shoes have been authenticated by GOAT or StockX the seller then receives payment. It's a great system that protects the buyer from unauthentic shoes & protects the seller from being phished. You see if the shoes aren't authentic the money is refunded. If the shoes are sent and the buyer refunds the transaction the shoes go back to the seller.
StockX
StockX tracks the sneakers sold on their site & similar sites around the web. These give you the 'stocks' for each shoe brand such as the Jordan Index, Nike Index, and Adidas Index. You can see when these shoes go up in stock and when they go down in stock. These numbers are altered based on the amount of units sold and the price those units are sold at. Under that 'umbrella' of Nike or Jordan and also under a smaller 'umbrella' like a specific shoe such as Adidas Yeezy V2 Zebra. StockX is the only service that offers tracking as in depth as I've explained with stock tracking amongst other tools. StockX is a very good option for selling shoes and buying them.
GOAT
GOAT is very similar to StockX in a lot of ways. You can sell for whatever price you want and however many pairs of shoes you want. GOAT lets you sell used shoes where StockX only allows you to sell new shoes. GOAT doesn't have all the fancy tracking of sales like StockX does but they are still a very good service. In fact I buy more shoes from GOAT than I do from StockX because GOAT has more competitive prices usually.
Which is Better?
GOAT is a much different platform than StockX. One isn't Necessarily better than the other but rather it's a thing of preferences. One big upside with GOAT over StockX is that on GOAT you can sell used shoes as opposed to only new shoes. Another upside is you take the pictures of your shoes you're selling and those are the pictures that get posted instead of stock images. Truth is both are very good services and very reliable. In my opinion to maximize profits you should use both in tandem as much as you can. Use StockX for the tools and information if offers and use GOAT to make sure you're selling at a good price. Sometimes on GOAT you can sell at a slightly higher price than on StockX. If you can make an extra $40-$60 at a minimum it's worth it. Likewise a shoe like Yeezy V2 Creams fluctuate every few months. They can be bought for as low as $390 and sold for as high as $500. Their profit margin is low but relatively reliable.
How can you make money?
It's rather simple when you think about it. Almost all shoes with limited quantity produced will have a large spike to their prices from time to time. Typically this happens once they first come out and then again years later when the shoe is a lot more rare. When there are few shoes left the prices usually hit all time highs. When Yeezy V2 Zebras came out they ran between $1,500-$2,500 at the peak. Now they run around $550-$650 which is a much more reasonable cost. Now the kicker is these shoes only cost $220 retail but only around 7,000 pairs and they have high value. The first series of Adidas Yeezys have a very high price tag compared to the V2s because they're far more rare now than when they first came out. My goal by telling you about these price fluctuations is to give you an idea of how volatile the market for certain pairs of shoes is and how reliable it is for other shoes. The truth is some shoes aren't worth investing in and others are worth traveling to a major city to wait in line to pick up a pair.
Make the Most of the Shoes
The way you make the most of these shoes takes more time than you might expect. If you live in a bigger city you're in a great place and if not you might have to travel to one. Very few places get in shoes like Pharrell Human Race NMDs or Yeezys. St. Albert's in Chicago gets them in but it's not a huge quantity of pairs. People stay in line for hours to get these pairs of shoes. It's something you can take advantage of. You have to figure out where the closest shop is from you and calculate the time it would take you to go there, get the sneakers, and come back. Is it worth your time? The probability that it's worth it is very high even as a side hustle. For me to travel up to Chicago 500 miles via train, pick up shoes, and travel 500 miles back is still worth it because I make a $220 investment that will turn into $800 at the very least if not $1600.
As you can see, there are a lot of different options to this economy. Travel to maximize profits or if you want to take advantage of this market but not full time you can buy or sell depending on the time of the year and when shoes are coming out. Or you can do a combination of both depending on how you feel from one month to the next. Selling high dollar shoes can be a very lucrative gig while you're going to school or college and makes a great side gig while you're working to earn just a little bit of extra money.
I will probably be posting more about the shoe economy and my personal experiences as well as the money I personally have made off of selling these shoes in the future!
If you have questions I reply quickly so let 'em rip