By analyzing trends in the sneaker market, sneaker resellers are making profits by reselling shoes online that meet at higher prices than the original retail price.
According to 610Hype owner Clayton Ruff, celebrity’s influence on the shoe culture dates back to 1985 when the original Jordan One came out.
This started the culture of sneaker reselling.
Reselling is when people hold sneakers like stocks and resell them new when their value has gone up.
According to sneaker reseller Brody Huss, the shoe culture is heavily influenced by music and pop artists.
When a trend is seen on a celebrity, many fans like to invest in the same trends.
Many resellers see this as an opportunity to make money through buying the trending shoes and reselling the shoes after they’ve increased in worth.
The culture of shoes has ties relating to music and pop culture.
“Kanye West had a major impact on it and then the same thing with Travis Scott,” said Huss.
People found interest in the shoes they wear because of the big brand names.
This creates “hype” because everyone wants the same pair of shoes.
In the case of Nike SB Dunk Low “Paris” which were originally sold by Nike for $69, the hype resulted in their worth going up to around $20,000.
According to Ruff, when people see famous people wearing something and they want them, then those shoes go up in value.
This then leads to the purpose of reselling.
Rather than owning the shoes for themselves, the reseller is reselling the shoes to others for profit.
According to Ruff, his purpose in reselling is getting money, but also seeing different kinds of shoes along the way.
“I do like it because I do get money, but it is also because I like the shoes,” Ruff said.
Resellers have many ways in which they can get information about the upcoming release date of shoes to how many shoes are available in each store.
Huss is in a group chat through the communication app Discord.
The Discord chat has all of the background information from store employees on which website has the shoes and how many pairs of shoes are out there.
This lets Huss know if a pair of shoes is going to be limited or not.
The Discord group chat also provides a guide on how well a similar shoe in the past did and how much it was sold for on the resale market.
The danger in buying shoes from other resellers in the resale market is that there is a high risk of buying fake shoes.
“It gets harder and harder as the years go by,” Ruff said.