Let’s start by saying…what is Hype? The very first comment before I go deeper into where I think prices would go for these “Not for Resale” is CLICHE (x1000). I mean as an older sneakerhead I certainly think this pair is a joke, but at the same time I can’t really complain because the quality is on point. Is it a pair I’m dying to have? Certainly no, but from a sneakerhead perspective, the quality and colour blocking is pretty good. I certainly would prefer the same shoe without the bold writings on the shoe, HOWEVER we do live in a different world today than 10 years ago and living in the past definitely wouldn’t help us with moving forward. Though I must say, this one is a rather a more interesting shoe to talk about as it’s the first of its kind and a pretty good marketing strategy by Nike to say the least.
The general consensus for these by the broader market is fairly in line with my thoughts above, but you might ask…then why are resell prices still so high? Well to explain that…for those that voice their displeasure of the shoes would certainly make it known to the public of how much they HATE this shoe, but for many others that actually like the shoe, they are probably going to keep it on the DL. The price being close to 4x the retail in certain sizes (ie. size 8-9.5 trending as high as $850-$890 on StockX) are staying pretty steady and doesn’t show much sign of dropping…yet! I actually don’t anticipate the price to drop too much from here, but I don’t see it going much higher either.
What’s supporting the price on these in my opinion is actually more from the lower supply than the demand. The higher resell prices doesn’t necessarily mean there is a ton of people dying to own the pair, but more so there are just less pairs on the market. A lot of retail stores had made a marketing play on this shoe for the release method…from having customers wear them out OR even having them do push ups in them to ensure they break them in before buying. Though it’s uncertain how many stores actually did this, but it’s safe to say there were probably less pairs in the market than a normal limited releases hitting the resell market. The smaller sizes are trending at a premium because the size distribution on these were actually very heavy in size ranges of 10.5-13 and much less on size 10 and under. This is why you see a size 13 selling almost half the price of a size 8.5. This wasn’t the case a few years ago, but to believe that every size is made at the same quantity is absolutely FALSE! and as a freebie a side note…if you’re entering a raffle, your chances of hitting a size 10.5 is probably much higher than going for a size 8.5 😉
Going forward, I’m pretty confident prices of brand new DS pairs would stay put and may even trend a bit higher next year, but pre-owned pairs should be A LOT cheaper. I personally think this isn’t a pair that a sneakerhead would keep and consider as a grail and probably will shed it from his/her rotation sooner or later and because they can’t re-sell a preowned pair on StockX, more pairs will end up in the pre-owned market causing prices to be much more affordable. However, from Nike’s standpoint I think they did an amazing job of generating buzz for this pair because you GOT PPL TALKING! The reverse psychology gimmick is pretty funny because you create a shoe that’s “supposed” to fight against the re-sell market, BUT YOU MAKE THE DAMN SHOE A LIMITED RELEASE!! I mean you get people mad and scratching their heads and complaining about why make it limited when it defeats the meaning and purpose of the shoe, but from Nike’s point of view they’re creating noise and have people talking about it and that’s something money can’t buy.
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