At some point in your sneaker career (if you want to call it that), there’s been a few releases that you wanted badly. I’m not talking about a sneaker that you though “yeah, those would be a dope addition to my collection”. I’m talking about the kind of sneaker that keeps you up at night because you’re lying in your bed thinking about how fly they are. You’re in math class trying to learn high-level algebra, and all you can think of is the kicks. You’re at work and your boss is going over some boring pie chart, and all you can think of is the kicks.
That’s what I mean when I say you’ve had a few releases that you wanted badly. So say release day comes around, and things don’t go your way. You sleep through your alarm. You aren’t quick enough adding the shoe to your cart. You get to the mall a little bit too late and your pair that you coveted is gone, walking away in the shopping bag of someone else who can’t possibly appreciate it as much.
So what do you do? You still need these shoes, and you’ve struck out everywhere you’ve looked for them. You’re at a point where you don’t care how much you pay to get them. This is where resellers come in.
Ah, resellers. Some would say they’re the scum of the sneaker game. They get hot shoes and flip them for ridiculous amounts of money, trying to get a buck wherever they can. With the way the shoe game is now, when the thirst for shoes reaches a certain level, people can ask almost any price for their kicks and get it. Consumers have enabled resellers to exist because of their desire for certain products.
Look at it this way: if people could control their thirst for limited shoes, there would be no room for resellers to operate. It’s all supply and demand. They have what you want, and you can’t get it anywhere else, so yes, they’re going to gouge you for it. This goes all the way from the guy who managed to get six pairs of the “Legend Blue” Jordan XI’s this last holiday season and made a fortune selling them to thirsty seasonal (they’re only into shoes around the holidays when the XI’s drop) sneakerheads all the way up to large-scale reselling marketplaces like Flight Club.
Sadly, it’s just the way the game is nowadays. The demand is higher than it’s even been and the supply seems to be lower than it’s ever been. Just promise yourself that you won’t pay too high of a price, and make sure you don’t let your thirst get the better of you. Everyone has to pay aftermarket prices for kicks they want every so often. It’s just how things go, for better or worse.
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