Trainer resale
Getting hold of your favourite pair of shoes isn’t always as straightforward in today’s market as it perhaps used to be. If you want to be successful at acquiring creps, in a lot of cases, you need to be well versed at traversing the trainer resale market. Of course, we all want to just be able to walk into a retailer, pick a pair off the rack, try them on, and take them home but that, unfortunately, isn’t the world we live in. The majority of trainers in 2019 that you’d want to get your hands on inevitably sell out; they sell out because in the bulk of cases stock levels are limited, making the demand for each pair wildly outweigh the supply. This isn’t an unfortunate coincidence, this is something manufacturers of the most popular products like Adidas’ Yeezy and Nike’s collaboration with Virgil Abloh’s Off-White are very much aware of and use exclusivity to drive the mass hysteria and “hype” surrounding each and every drop.
Supply < Demand
What is created as a result is an incredibly lucrative paradox for everyone involved in trainer culture, these styles are limited because of the high demand, and they are in high demand because they are exclusive. This naturally is what caused the initial inception and gradual rise of the resale market, as there will always be more people who want to purchase a drop than are able to do so from retailers and are willing to pay more than retail price for the privilege. For the longest time resale involved someone acquiring a pair through whichever means were available to them, and then relisting the item via an unregulated marketplace like eBay or in more recent times places like Facebook and Depop. Now although this can be a perfectly legitimate way of acquiring your favourite pair long after they have sold out in retailers, several hiccups that come innately wired into this method can lead to this being a less than pleasant experience for the buyer.
Trainer Resale platforms
What I mean by this is that due to these auction sites being majority unspecific and widely unregulated you can literally sell whatever you want, making the fear of not getting precisely what you are looking for all the more heightened. When you are dealing with individuals, the consistency of the experience can fluctuate from fantastic to terrible, and in a lot of cases, finding what you want is often like finding a needle in a haystack. This is where trainer resale platforms like us here at Laced come in. At our foundation as is the same with most of our peers, we acknowledge that the resale market I have just described to you is a bit of a Wild West-style model, what we are trying to achieve is very much new world. Via a meticulous commitment to creating a much safer and consistent environment in which to freely browse and then ultimately purchase within the resale market, the end result is a string of well-established resale platforms all of which perform in a lot of ways as a retailer does.
Trading above retail
The only difference for the consumer that really matters is probably the biggest one: the price. If you can imagine, you get hold of a Yeezy Boost 350 v2 Black for example, at the retail price of £180, how you did this could be through anything from pure luck to careful judgement. You could enter one of the many available online raffles that offer lucky winners the opportunity to purchase the product on release day for the fixed retail price without having to frantically click through a splash page seconds after the designated shoe is released. Similarly, if you were that way inclined you could either build or purchase a bot in which to automate the process making it quicker than would ever be possible with the human hand, therefore, guaranteeing you get the products processed and purchased before it sells out. The method you use isn’t particularly important, the point is you have a pair, and some people weren’t as fortunate as you but are still desperate to rectify this. This instantly makes a £180 investment into a shoe like a Yeezy Boost 350 v2 Black translate within anywhere from a few hours to a week or so into upwards of a £300+ investment.
Competitive prices
Shoe’s are no longer bought solely to be worn, but instead, are treated as investments, a stock like quantity, and what a resale platform like ourselves at Laced offer, is a way of connecting those who want to sell the trainers everyone wants, with the buyers who want to buy what they haven’t got. In general terms, the resale market is a very fluid one, when you are talking about trades happening above retail value there really is no barometer for which direction the prices are going to fluctuate, the prices are set by the sellers, and a “competitive price” is really only defined by how much someone is willing to pay. This is why it is essential to look around before attempting to make a sale or a purchase, assess the competition, learn the market, that is the only way to be adequately informed with your decisions. The good thing about the majority of resale platforms is that they provide you with all this information in one way or another to ensure that there is some consistency within their own marketplace.
Safe, fast, authentic
To summarise, I think it is fair to be a bit overwhelmed when initially delving into the resale world, but you need to rest easy in the belief that by enlisting a platform like ourselves as Laced as your broker for all your dealings it really does limit the opportunity for any sort of disaster. Each and every transaction is regulated, with 100% of products that pass through our walls being authenticated by an expert team of professionals, and a knowledgeable team on hand to give advice on any aspect of your big sale or exciting new purchase. I’m here to tell you there really should be nothing to worry about, it might be a bit more expensive, but done well, it is just like buying from any other online trainer retailer.