I had originally written this one couple weeks ago, but decided to hold back on the post given the amount of activity (SNKRS release for voters and current buyouts) revolving around this shoe. Now that the dust has settled, let’s cut the bull shit and get right into it. It doesn’t take an industry expert to figure out that this shoe is definitely going to increase in price in the future. I’m not even going to touch on that question, but the more important question is how fast and to what price point?
From my personal experience, I had to pay resell on the very first release last year and paid a decent amount at $725 USD per pair. I wore 1 pair and gift carded the other 2 pairs out to our members for $11. Originally I anticipated the hype and demand for it at that time to be much stronger than the demand in the release we see today, but in hindsight I was wrong. Yes, re-sell price was higher at the time, but not many people were willing to pay that re-sell price knowing the fact there will be an actual full on release couple months later. A lot of people were holding out. Even in our $11 gift card, the amount of people in the draw were relatively less than what we see in the same $11 gift card today. I concluded that most people were willing to wait for air max day release and hold out on paying the re-sell price to have the shoes earlier.
Why do we see a greater demand today? In my personal opinion, buyers were waiting for their chance to get these at retail on air max day, but obviously not everyone will get a pair. Re-sell was respectable at the time sitting briefly at $400-$450, but that didn’t last long as we hit a point were buyers really wanting a pair knew if don’t buy it now, there won’t be a second chance via retail. That explains why prices literally moved up to $500 in less than a week. Yes, it’s only $50 hike, but in percentage terms, that’s more than 10% price hike in less than 1 week. We are now 3 months into the air max day release and we are looking at prices of $650-$700 per pair…but most of you are wondering what about 1 year later?
I certainly can’t tell you exactly when and what price the shoe will be on any given future date, but I can definitely tell you this. This is definitely a $1,000 shoe in maybe 2 years time or maybe sooner. What drives the demand for this shoe is very unique. Not only do you see EVERY celebrity wearing them, the story behind the shoes is what really makes people want to own them. From the old sneakerheads perspective like me, I want to own the shoe because it’s a meaningful milestone for the culture where Nike finally opened up its collab with non-artists. Finally Nike can work with someone that doesn’t have a long ass resume in design or music or whatever achievements in the industry to collab on a shoe. From the new generation sneakerhead’s perspective, if Lebron James, John Mayer, KD, Travis Scott and the list goes on….there’s no doubt the newer generation would also want this shoe. With all this demand from different demographics, you know prices are going up.
[VERDICT] Am I stocking up on this shoe? Yes. Should you pay prices today? That depends how and when you look at it. Yes, $700 seems like a steep price to pay today with so many cheaper alternative sneaker options out there, but in 2 years time when prices are $1,000, you’ll probably look back and say…$700 was a steal!
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