sold out: HOW BOTS AND RESELLERS ARE KILLING STREETWEar culture
background:
In streetwear today, many items are filled with hype and excitement months before they are released. Many people who love to collect and wear certain streetwear and sneaker brands will give certain releases and collections high praise before they release to build the anticipation and increase the item's street value, even before it hits the shelves. As the promotion around a release builds, mostly through social media, resellers prepare themselves to cop as many of the items as possible, in which they will go to extreme lengths such as hiring other people to extend shopping cart limits, using multiple electronic platforms to increase the amount of online carts they have, and worst of all, using 'bots' to cut other online shoppers en route to a nice payday. Resellers buy and sell rare or limited pieces of clothing or sneakers without intending to use them, but rather charge a higher price than they paid to bring in a profit. This lowers the average consumers chances to buy a limited or quick strike item, and increases the amount of money they have to pay to acquire the item. Reselling, especially while using bots, alters the final price for streetwear items by inserting a middle man, even though the retailer had no intentions for the price to be any higher.
In the 1980's Hip-Hop and Rock & Roll streetwear flooded the streets and media. People started to ditch their old and traditional garments like suits, collared shirts, blouses, flared pants, and clogs. Instead of hippie and disco-dancing influenced clothing, streetwear like hoodies, crewnecks, band t-shirts, graphic t-shirts, straight jeans, and sneakers were preferred. Hip-Hop artists like Run DMC, Public Enemy, and Rakim began to set trends in fashion that would reshape the culture in America forever. Rock bands like AC/DC, KISS, Metallica, and The Rolling Stones were also a huge influence on the culture and streetwear in the 80's. Both genres supported one central idea and trend, rebellion. The youth of America would drive pop culture and fashion from then on and would determine what was, "cool". Many companies began to cater to the needs of the youth through streetwear. Companies like Nike, Stussy, Adidas, and Starter blew up in the public eye and many famous and influential people started rocking their clothing and sneakers. This drove the demand for this type of clothing through the ceiling and had every kid in America wanting a pair of Nikes or a Supreme shirt.
Streetwear in the 80's
history of the jumpman:
In 1984, Michael Jordan signed a deal to become Nike's next signature athlete as a rookie in the NBA. The next year, Nike debuted his first signature shoe, the Jordan 1, a basketball silhouette that flew off the shelves due to newly found hype around the brand and the player. The following year the Air Jordan 2 would sit on the shelves and the future of the player's signature line fell uncertain. In Jordan's 4th NBA season, Nike released the Air Jordan 3, which became one of the most important sneakers in history. After the Air Jordan 3 release, Nike and Jordan would work their way into the top sneaker spot in America.
In 2016, Nike is now the largest selling sneaker brand in America by a massive margin, and Jordan brand also recently celebrated its 30th signature shoe with the Air Jordan XXX. Every saturday Nike releases multiple new editions of sneakers online and in-stores, sometimes very limited or anticipated. Very often the brand will re-release a shoe that was popular in the 80's or 90's and it will sell out on that very day because of the shoes previous popularity. While these weekly releases help keep the brand on top, the average comsumer can have a very difficult time getting their hands on these releases and this is why: resellers.
Resold Supreme:
Resellers have been buying and selling popular and rare streetwear for years, in which the average consumer has been restricted from copping highly demanded clothing for retail price. It is very common for resellers to buy items of limited quantity from Nike, Adidas, Supreme, and Bape, and sell them on 3rd party websites like eBay for hundreds of dollars above retail value. Resellers can sell their items as high as consumers are willing to pay, in which Supreme t-shirts have been sold for $44 and resold at $600. Resellers obviously have to mark up products they get their hands on to make a profit, but an up-charge of over $550 seems a little ridiculous for a graphic tee. (Sanchez, 2015)
Leach, Alec. (2015) Tracking the Resell Price of Both Adidas and Nike’s Yeezy Sneakers. High Snobiety. http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/08/25/yeezy-resell-adidas-nike/
Value of Kanye West: The same can be said about the resale value of the latest collaboration between Adidas and creative icon Kanye West, the Yeezy Boost 350. The rapper has had multiple collaborations with Nike in the past, but he and the streetwear giant split after some disagreements over money. His two collaborations with Nike still have quite a reputation among sneakerheads and can be found on eBay for thousands of dollars as the second collab sold out in just over ten minutes on Nike's online store. (Leach, 2015) After 'Ye took his ideas to Adidas in 2015, they released two signature shoes in the year. In both cases the shoes sold out in minutes, and hit resale websites for hundreds of dollars above retail, like so many other hyped streetwear releases. (Leach, 2015) These shoes and clothing garments sell out online because resellers are able to purchase a program for their computer called a "Bot" which greatly increases their chances to cop the rare items.
A sneaker or clothing "Bot" is a software for computers that resellers and many others use as a tool to cut other shoppers when shoes or clothing collections drop online. As online shoppers anticipate the release of a limited item, they camp on the webpage like they would outside of a retail store for releases, except those with bots will have a monstrous advantage. These bots are able to automatically add as many sneakers or garments in any specific size as fast as a webpage will load up the cart. The bot also has your payment and shipping information programmed into it so that it can complete the purchase, sometimes even before average consumers can even load the inital webpage of the release. Many resellers use multiple different computers or internet platforms and multiple bots so that they can get as many pairs of sneakers as possible. As resellers cut in online shopping lines to snag sneakers from under customers, they almost immediately put their new items on resale websites, attempting to sell them for a profit with no intentions to actually use the items. This is the problem and it causes customers to pay hundreds of dollars above retail for items that were never intended to be that expensive. The average consumer has to start turning down outrageous resale prices, and bots need to be banned from streetwear and sneaker websites. Streetwear companies can do much more to limit resellers and keep bots off of their server.
