Is anyone else tired of the time and effort they spend every few days trying to buy the next "must have" sneaker, only to see that sneaker forgotten about days later? Everyone moves on because something else new and "better" is coming out. This is a growing trend in the sneaker world, and quite frankly, I'm not a fan. What happened to buying shoes that you liked? Buying shoes that you wanted to wear? In the sneaker industry today, the brands are capitalizing on the sneaker culture's need to buy any and every shoe just in case it's limited, or might have some resell value.
However, with the increased number of releases and the over-saturation in the market, it has resulted in a big change in the resell market of sneakers. If a lot of, or enough of a certain group of influential "sneaker twitter" personalities strike out on a particular release, it suddenly becomes "trash" causing the market price for that shoe to drop. Everyone moves onto the next release and lot's of people get stuck with shoes they only purchased to sell. This results in a market full of sellers, with very little buyers.
On top of the brands over-saturating the market, the sneaker collaboration market is becoming over-saturated. This is a problem I believe that started with Ronnie Fieg (I would like to point out that recently RF has been making an effort to lessen the number of collabs and make each one special). Other brick and mortar shops saw the success and the following this one man was gaining just from limited sneaker collaborations, and they wanted their piece of the money! At this point, there seems to be multiple collabs dropping every week from various shops. Some shops even seem to drop a collab almost every week. I feel that that is not the spirit of collaborations; they should be special, every-once-in-a-while type of sneakers that are limited and exclusive. That is not the case and things have begun to get out of hand. The over-saturation of collabs has had the same effect on the resell market as pointed out before.
My question for you is, what can we do to change it?
I'd like to start by proposing a couple ideas. The first of which being, BUY WHAT YOU LIKE. Buy a sneaker because you like it, because you want to wear it. Not because this "cool" youtube sneaker guy wants it, or because your favorite reseller says the shoe is going for "X" amount. I understand that, sometimes you're going to buy a shoe you aren't sure if you will keep or not. Hell, I do it from time to time. I even resell pairs every so often when I feel like I start to accumulate excessive pairs. I'm just saying, don't make that your goal each and every time you buy a pair of shoes, "How much can I sell this pair for?" Enjoy the shoes, or find a new hobby.
The second proposal I have for you is, find a network of sneaker guys that can all help each other out. Do favors for each other; throw oops. Help each other keep up on release dates and news. Having a network like this can go a long way for several reasons. These guys can help you on release day, throw you deals on pairs they decided not to stick with, keep you from buying too many pairs, and talk shoes (among other things) with you. At the end of the day, these guys are friends with a similar interest. This is something we have among several writers here along with some other friends, and it is one of the things that make sneakers fun still. For me, the relationships I have gained through sneakers are far more important than the sneakers themselves.
Lastly, I will leave you with this piece of advice. They are just sneakers.
Thanks for taking the time to read, hope you enjoyed.
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