Last week a friend of mine sent me a listing on a local buy/sell thread “Kijiji” regarding a SB collection buyout. The interesting part was not about the sneakers themselves, but rather the interesting comment in the description. Can you spot it below? LOL
The funny thing is I don’t even recall ever hearing from this person in recent memory, but I was super curious about the comment so I hit him up personally and asked why the comment. He said I low balled him before…but to my defense he must have came to me more than 1 year ago when the market for SBs was still dead. I told him I’m probably the last person on earth to low ball, but if it was me giving you a low ball it’s because that’s the price the market was willing to pay at the time. Times changes and so do prices. I pay what market pays minus my work…and the conversation quickly came to valuing the collection and coming up with a mutual price. I told him to give me a list of the shoes and condition and the list came back in the form of a picture of a piece of paper of with the details…and as you can tell, this took longer than expected. I usually ask for shoes in excel so it’s easier for everyone.
As I went through the list, 95% of the shoes were preowned and maybe only 10% of them were actually shoes that were considered heat. I’ll be honest, I was so close to turning down this buyout because of the amount of work is going to be a lot more than I expected and the cost vs benefit equation is starting to not add up. Moreover this was nearly impossible to accurately value because they were mostly preowned and I didn’t request any pictures of the 96 pairs and I strictly went off the seller’s assessment of the condition of each pair. BUT since I was already half invested in this, I mind as well follow through with it and treat it as a personal challenge. Then came the negotiations…
First thing I told him was that the heat vs. not so grail sneaker ratio was way too low and the fact they are mostly pre-owned I can’t think of more than 3 people in the city that would even be remotely interested in taking all the pairs. Sure there would be many interested buyers, but 99% of them would ONLY be interested in stripping your top 10% pairs. Personally I make it super easy for potential sellers in the city because I’m pretty lenient in my buying process and I pay upfront – I never consign (rarely unless I know you very well). Luckily given our not so great start from the beginning, the seller was understanding and was fair on the pricing and we struck a mutual buyout price.
One thing I know for a fact from this buyout is…the amount of work is probably 100x more than what it would require of me compared to my DS Red October flip from earlier this week, but like I mentioned in the last blog…these are the buyouts that I would learn from and also be part of my perpetual business going forward. The work put into this collection is not luck…it’s sweat equity. Sure today’s buyout wasn’t all the crazy grails that everyone is dying to buy, BUT because I’m willing to do what most people don’t want to do (ie. take the not so hype sneakers), I have the upper hand in negotiating business. I mean my job would have been much easier if I only took the grails from the list and left behind the hard to sell not so grails for the seller, but no one said business was easy. At that point the seller would have a ton of buyers to choose from and why would they want to go with me? At that point, the seller would probably just sell to whomever is most convenient and offered the highest price. So if you’re a re-seller one thing to note is don’t be afraid to put in work…. Today may be the not so must have grail collection…BUT the day when the crazy collection does comes through, you are more than ready to compete against your competitor because you have the experience to move volume and trust me – this is definitely an asset when it comes down to collection buyouts.
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