The Art of Reselling Sneakers

A Guide for Beginners

By Maxine Attobrah

How Much Do You Need to Get Started?

Initial Investment

$100 - $1000

The process to resell sneakers is to buy sneakers at a low price and then sell those sneakers at a higher price. Two ways that I know where this can happen is if someone buys sneakers at the retail price or sometimes after a sneaker has sold out the price goes below retail.

You can start off with one pair just to get your feet wet.

As you become more comfortable with process, you can buy multiple pairs and gradually increase the amount of sneakers you sell.

Photo by jose aljovin on Unsplash

Where Can You Sell?

3 Major Platforms for Sneaker Reselling

There are 3 major sneaker reselling marketplaces.

Sneaker reselling platforms are the middlemen between buyers and sellers.

How it works:

Sellers can choose how much they would like to sell a shoe on most platforms. The seller is alerted when a person is ready to buy. Before the buyer receives the shoe, the seller must send it to the company to check if the sneakers are authentic and everything is in the proclaimed condition. Once everything passes, the shoes are shipped to the buyer.

Platforms like these attempt to make transactions safer and secure.

Platforms use both artificial intelligence as well as human expertise to authenticate shoes.

Sellers are held accountable for shipping on time, providing authentic items, and having shoes/packaging in good condition.

Stockx

Users can see:

Current value of sneakers

Number of sneakers sold

Prices people are bidding

Asking price of sellers

Last 51 sale price and shoe size people bought

Loss or gain of items

This helps to see if you are underpaying or underselling.

Flight Club was one of the first places to make it easier for people to buy and sell sneakers to each other.

Flight Club is seen as a candy land for sneaker enthusiast.

It was the go to spot for many sneaker enthusiast and tourists to find.

GOAT acquired Flight Club in 2018.

Similar to StockX and Flight Club shoes are authenticated before sending to the buyer.

GOAT and Flight Club seem to be the most trusted when it comes to receiving authentic shoes.

StockX is a great tool to analyze sneaker transaction data. They have made the most revenue compared to the other platforms mentioned above. Another important note to mention about StockX is that you can sell more than sneakers and apparel. You can watches, limited edition cereal boxes, art, etc. For instance, some of KAWs art pieces are resold on the platform.

Photo by Chris Henry on Unsplash

Annual Revenue for Top Sneaker Reselling Marketplaces

Which Shoes Should I Focus On?

It Depends..

There are so many factors that go into what may make a sneaker "successful". There are many brands out there that people really like. However, Nike has produced some of the most highly sought out sneakers.

person wearing white-red-and-black Nike X Off-White Air Jordan 1's

Photo by Paul Volkmer on Unsplash

Industry Size

$6,000,000,000

The size of this industry is huge!

As mentioned before, there many factors that go into what makes a sneaker "successful". One factor is brand collaboration. In 2017 Nike and Virgil Abloh collaborated to create "The Ten" Collection. Virgil Abloh is one of the worlds greatest designers. He was the CEO of Off-White and Creative Director at Louis Vuitton. The 10 collection consist of 10 shoes that appear as deconstructed Nike shoes. The video below discuss all ten sneakers in more detail.

person in black and brown camouflage jacket and blue and white nike shoes

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

The chart above is an example of one of the shoes in this collection which is the Off-White X Nike Jordan 1 UNC. The shoe was released in 2018 and retailed for $190. As of February 2023, the show is selling for 1000s of dollars.

Then there are some shoes that a much harder to explain of why it became successful. Some shoes just seem to be in high demand because of hype. This is where social media seems to play a big roll.

@jaadiee Replying to @Big T. Styling the Big Red Boot 🅱️🥵👴🏻 #gramps #bigredboot #mschf #streetwear #fashion #styling #outfit #astroboy ♬ HOTEL LOBBY (Unc & Phew) - Quavo & Takeoff

Not All Sneakers Are Good For Reselling

Photo by Cash Macanaya on Unsplash

It is really important to keep in mind that not all shoes resell for high prices. You may a lot of your money. One factor that can play into that is sneaker restocks. The easier it is for everyone to get the shoe at its retail price, the less likely they are to want to buy at a higher price. If it is anticipated that there will be a restock then people would rather just wait.

Things to Keep in Consideration

To sum up everything mentioned above, there are many things to keep into consideration when thinking of reselling sneakers. Not every sneaker is going to give you a great return on investment. You may even lose money! Some factors to keep in mind are:

Brand

Condition

Limited Quantity

Hype

Collaborations

So let's say you have picked a shoe you want to sell. You need to keep in mind the fees charged on these platforms when you are considering your price to sell.

Platform Fees

StockX

Minimum Seller Fee: $9.00

Payment Transaction Fee: 3%

Commission Fee

Level	Sales Required	Sales ($) Required	Base Transaction Fee
1	n/a	n/a	10.00%
2	3	$500 (USD)	9.50%
3	6	$1,500 (USD)	9.00%
4	25	$5,000 (USD)	8.50%
5	250	$30,000 (USD)	8.00%