They release three shoes… all on the same morning, all with some level of demand.
There are two Air Jordans with a metallic gold color, one in the OG high silhouette and the second is a mid with lots more gold accents. Adidas and Kanye West, on the other had, are re-releasing the Yeezy 500 in Utility Black. Not sure how that’s “cyber” but regardless, a well received shoe.
Who woke up this morning with lotsa love from Footlocker in their inbox?
There are a few more… 47 emails from customercare to be exact. But no, these are not individual orders with a status update. All these emails are for two orders, but I guess Footlocker Customer Care really wanted to keep me informed of the delays.
I feel the love, Footlocker!
Don’t want to drag this out, but from experience, getting Footlocker shipments to Hawaii can be hit or miss. Okay, it’s not specifically Footlocker, but all “footsites” aka Champs, Eastbay, Footaction, and Footlocker. Footaction has been a total dud getting online orders of hype shoes to the aina. They always cancel. Champs is almost as bad as Footaction. Eastbay has been good and Footlocker had been good but even they cancel more than they should.
Like I explained before, these cancelled orders have to do with warehouses and stores and who’s allowed to ship to Hawaii. So if your online order is being fulfilled by the massive footsite warehouse then everything should be good. However, if your order gets routed to a brick-and-mortar store for fulfillment, you can count that as a loss.
Until COVID-19.
I place three orders during the past few weeks. Two from Footlocker and one from Champs. Both Footlocker orders got the telltale sign of cancellation – an email titled “We’re still working on your order” and the body starts with:
It’s taking a bit longer to complete your order. We’re trying to track down your item.
Historically, that’s a sign of game over. Checking the order status would show the name of the shoe replaced with some generic description like this:
But this time, after two days, I received emails stating the incredulous:
YOUR ORDER HAS SHIPPED
I had heard from Unbreakable Kicks that physical stores were still in business, just not opened to the public. Instead the workers were packing and shipping out orders from their local inventory – something that Hawaii was not privvy to until now (again, this is for hype sneakers, not general releases).
The Champs order is still processing, but I already got the email saying, “We’re still working on your order.” So this will test if other sites can ship to the 808 during Rona Times.
Now having seen this, will these successful online orders continue after stores reopen? Or will footsites revert to cancelled orders?
It had to have been obvious that the Footlocker mobile app updates its Hawaii store data on Hawaiian time. I mean in the beginning of the week, the Footlocker app showed reservations for the upcoming Air Jordan 1 Retro First Class for Hawaii locations. Oddly, the reservations for adult sizes were at Footlocker Ka Makana Alii, Kapolei. While the GS sizes were reserved at the Waikiki House of Hoops and nowhere else.
Odd right? Nonetheless, I signed for the reservations to see what could happen. The following day, I checked the Footlocker app on another device and sure enough, those reservations were changed to first come, first served (FCFS) for Ala Moana and sweepstakes/raffle for Waikiki. The app must have updated on that relaxed Hawaiian time..
Of course it was too good to be true. Since the re-release of the Yeezy 350 Beluga, I don’t recall any Hawaii Footlockers doing in-app reservations for any hyped shoe release. That’s why it was both surprising and refreshing when the upcoming Yeezy 350 Cloud White showed up as a reservation for the Ala Moana and Waikiki House of Hoops locations.
With the Footlocker reservation system, good customers get a head start on buying shoes, and I was hoping for luck on these Yeezy Clouds. But… after making a change to my reservation size selection, the signup system changed from reservation to sweepstakes. Yup, the regular ole lucky number ticketing system. Go to the store, sign up, and get a ticket and then hopefully a call back saying your ticket is a winner. I’ve won once so I can’t complain (too much), but I would have preferred my chances with a reservation.
While I hope a reservation shows up in-app for upcoming sneakers, the delay in shipping to Hawaii has got to be a factor why this system won’t work for the 808. The digital reservation might reset by the time the shoes arrive.
By the way, the Yeezy Citrins that drop the following week are sweepstakes for Ala Moana and Waikiki Footlockers.
So on Footlocker.com, I did a search for the terms “jordan mid” and got these results. I don’t get it.
I supposed Jordan is close to “Juicy?”
The second House of Hoops comes to Hawaii at the Waikiki Footlocker location. The Ala Moana Footlocker was Hawaii’s first House of Hoops back in 2011. I’m not sure why it took so long to designate this second location. I would have guessed Waikiki would be busy with tourists looking for shoes during their Hawaii stay, especially the kicks crazy from Japan.
Aw boo to you Foot Locker. Free shipping** doesn’t really mean free shipping when the ** is concerned since the ** means free shipping only applies to the 48 contiguous states.
Offer is limited to standard ground delivery within the 48 contiguous United States and APO/FPO addresses.
Guess I’ll just have to wait to get these hyper-ed out Zoom Structure 18 in Hyper Cobalt/Black/Hyper Jade/Hyper Punch. Or find another vendor that will ship to Hawaii. Zappos???
Aw bummer, I didn’t win the chance to purchase the Air Jordan Fear Pack from Ala Moana Foot Locker. I thought the signs were in my favor, especially with a raffle ticket ending with #23. But checking the winning numbers, I was denied both the AJ3 and the AJ5.
Oh well, the kicks gods were against me today, or maybe this is a message that I need to listen to Macklemore and not let consumerism define me. Nah, I’d still rather have a fresh pair of Jordans.