So what happened to the AJ1 2001 Prices anyways?

If you were in the sneaker scene a few years back…precisely 2015/2016 you all might have noticed the insane price hike on the 2001 Jordan 1 BREDs and Royals. At the time it was something that absolutely no one can explain…and I guarantee you those that say they could explain it are LYING! It made absolutely no sense. I remember copping DS pairs 1-2 years prior to that for $350-$400 and sat on them for months and it got to a point that I didn’t even bother listing them. Then one day I decided to run one of those flash sales on my site for $400 and it was sold in seconds. I’m like shiet…that was fast. Then I listed another pair for $450 and it sold in matter of minutes. I went through the stash and eventually got to a price of $650 and I sold 90% of my pairs.

At that time, I didn’t have a clue what was going on because to me they were nothing but a numbered pair of Jordan 1s. I started doing some research and noticed other sellers were selling them for $700. Literally right after I went to hoard as many pairs that I can for a decent margin under $700 from individual sellers that didn’t get the memo yet. Once that market dried up, I went for as many decent pre-owned pairs as I can because if this trend was to keep going, people will settle for pre-owned/nds pairs because DS prices would be too expensive. The highest point it ever got to was $1,000 for a DS pair, but I never sold them at the price as I always sold them for less than what other people were asking. Demand and prices were so crazy that whenever I had a DS pair newly in hand, I literally had 4-5 ppl waiting to put money in my pocket to get them and I didn’t even had to list on my website. Every day and I kid you not, I would have DMs asking me if I had extra pairs available for sale. It was crazy stupid and so crazy that even CorgiShoe decided it was time to cash in on this 50 pairs+ stash.

Fast forward to 2018 and prices are literally at 50-60% discount from the $1,000 high couple years back. So what happened? The constant retro of bringing back nike air branding was part of the explanation, but I believe the biggest contributing factor of the price drop was due to a fad trend gone bad. When I mean fad, it means people are just trying hop on the bandwagon of owning what’s hot at the time and simply paying whatever price just to own them. As a business/re-seller, you have to be able to identify these fads and play your cards right. They could be super lucrative in the moment, but once it dies down, what are you going to do with your stash? Looking back, had I kept all those pairs longer waiting for prices to go higher, I would have been FKED and stuck with a bunch of pairs I overpaid for that I couldn’t get rid of for a fraction of what I paid. Being a reseller is not always easy. We don’t have fixed margins like retailers. Margins fluctuate with the market and if it literally changes everyday and for the record….YES, we do take Ls too.

VERDICT – identifying FADS takes experience, but usually common sense can allow you to make the right decision 80% of the time. Sometimes its better to go with the less risky flips than to go hard on the FADS.