Ye in a 3?
Real or photoshopped? Kanye West pulling through a McDonald’s drive through in a Tesla Model 3 (see the roof and telltale door handles).
Off-White Zip Tie, On or Off?
While I have not had the luxury of owning (okay, keeping) a pair of Nike and Off-White “The Ten” collaborations, I do wonder if you’re supposed to leave the telltale zip tie on or are you supposed to remove it? I would guess it gets in the way when walking, but on the same token, it really does stand out.
The Off-White brand isn’t very helpful either in their instructional video.
https://vimeo.com/234843772
Foot Locker Likes to Mess with Air Jordan 1 Fans
Foot Locker surely likes to mess around with the fans of the Air Jordan 1. If you’ve ever searched their site for “Air Jordan 1,” you’ll come across many models from the mid tops to the more popular high tops. Sometimes even popular, coveted AJ1 highs show up in inventory. Or does it?
Watch this recent video where I attempt to cart different AJ1 colorways on Footlocker.com with frustrating results.
No Cactus Jack AJ1 for Me
Just a little memory of the Travis Scott Cactus Jack AJ1 drop after his performance at the Grammys.
I was unsuccessful using Nike SNKRS as well.
Gotta Give It to Nike
You gotta give it to Nike and give credit where credit is due. During Super Bowl LIII, sneakerheads were watching the Super Bowl halftime show as Travis Scott performed in his signature Air Jordan 1 model. The hope, of course, was that Nike would shock drop those shoes when Scott took the stage, similar to Justin Timberlake’s Air Jordan 3 Tinker surprise release.
But that would be cliche. Fast forward to today, a Sunday night when Travis Scott performed at the Grammys. Nike did their thing and shook it up with a late night shock drop. Even during this off-peak time, this limited release went fast. I managed to get in the virtual line but did not get the hoped for “Got’em” message.
Although I wasn’t successful, I gotta admire the Swoosh for doing something different, keeping it fresh. Now, I just gotta hope for better luck whenever the bigger release happens.
Nordstrom Online Continues to Disappoint
What else can I say other than I’ve been let down by Nordstrom online again… and again. Twice in the same day. I had placed two early orders for pre-release products – one in January and one in February. Yesterday, I received two emails that both orders had been cancelled due to item unavailability.
Supposedly both items did actually become available but both ran through their inventory before my orders were fulfilled. I just don’t see how this is possible, especially for pre-release orders. Mind you that inventory available does update while online orders are being placed. At release, you’ll see all sizes available on the product page, but as time passes, sizes that sell out no longer appear indicating a sell out. So there is a means of tracking inventory, but it appears that Nordstrom’s online system just isn’t good enough,
And really, that’s the frustration with all of this. For all the worldclass service Nordstrom offers and their top notch store environments, their online system is severely lacking. Realize that I’ve now had 4 out of 8 online shoe orders cancelled by Nordstrom. If you ordered items online and received only half of what you ordered, would you be satisfied?
I tweeted out to @Nordstrom and received the usual response that they’ll share my experience with the teams. It’s been four months since my first Twitter complaint was shared with the teams and so far, I can’t see any progress.
Adidas Boost Back at Nordstrom Rack
In December, I had come across lots of Adidas Boost shoes (including the Parley version of the UltraBoost ST) at Nordstrom Rack. Well, the Boost is back at The Rack. Here’s what I came across this past week. Sorry, I don’t have the prices, but they were hovering right at $100, except for the Reigning Champ collab. That all terrain high top was discounted to $150!!
I also found a Solebox branded Pure Boost (style code B27992).
Although kinda interesting looking, this shoe must not have sold well at all. There was practically a full size run of these shoes, and the price was around $80, down from $200. Resell on these are not good. I tried on a pair, and while comfortable, they can’t beat the support of the UltraBoost.
Anyways, if you’re looking for a personal pair of Boost at pretty good prices, check out your local Nordstrom Rack. And if you don’t like them, you have 45 days to return them.
ResExp: (Sneaker) Size Matters
Whether #coppingkicks or searching for #rossfinds, one notable distinction is that size matters. It really matters. Success in one field doesn’t equate to success in the other.
So here it goes. When doing the #rossfinds thing, you’re hoping to score men’s shoes sized 9-12. These are the most common men’s sizes, so therefore, you have the largest audience of potential customers. Check out this size run of the recent Yeezy Zebra release that illustrates the size breakdown.
Although not 100% accurate (that 85 size 8.5 was an admitted typo), you get the idea of the size distribution with size 9-12 dominating the size run. Here’s a graphical view showing the bell-shaped results.
Now let’s flip it around for #coppingkicks. This strategy targets the extremes. Success with #coppingkicks means copping kicks as small or as big as possible. You want the size 6 or 16. In this market, you avoid the common sizes. You target the small supply to drive the high demand and accordingly, the high cost. Reselling the common sizes aka bricks won’t lead to profit and in fact, could lead to losses. The lower sizes aka “bae sizes” are for the women, youngsters, and small footers. The larger sizes are more of a gamble since the population of size 16-ers isn’t common, but they need fresh kicks too.
The basic idea is to own one of the 256 size 4 shoes and have more bargaining power than one of the 1316 in a size 9.5. It’s the basic principle of supply and demand at work.
ResExp: May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor
The kicks game comes down to the odds plain and simple.
Even with all the tech, all the servers, all the software, and all the accounts, the main goal is to increase your odds of being able to purchase a pair of shoes. That’s it. All the aforementioned simply help you maximize your odds of getting access to in-demand shoes.
Of course 50 in 50,000 is better odds than 2 in 50,000, but those odds are still not in your favor. Now I’m sure there are those who have advanced, proprietary techniques of skewing the odds significantly more, but I would guess that is not the population of kicks collectors.
So what am I saying? I’m thinking that to actually be successful #coppingkicks is a very difficult, dedicated endeavor. The upfront expenses probably won’t be covered immediately and since we’re dealing with the higher end, many won’t be able to sustain the costs.
It’s almost good enough to try your hand at entering draws, raffles, and buying via manual means. Heck, even using slot providers with their Pay After Success fee is probably more cost friendly with decent odds.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
ResExp: Revisiting Poshmark
I briefly dabbled with Poshmark as another means to sell my #rossfinds, but Posh is a different kind of place. The clientele is unlike eBay, and accordingly, your goods aka your closet, needs to match up. Rossfinds is not an ideal match for Poshmark since you can’t say the items are NWT (New with Tags) if you don’t have the original box, and the fees make it harder to negotiate price.
So I stopped selling on Posh, but I’m revisiting it since some of my recent finds have been a little more posh. Stuff like this Air Jordan 12 in Vachetta Tan. We’ll see if this newest attempt leads to anything worthwhile…
ResExp: Buying High End Kicks Is High Tech
The most obvious observation of buying high end kicks aka #coppingkicks is how high tech it is. Software bots, monitors, quick tasks, cloud-based servers, virtual machines, VPN, proxies, and more are just some of the tech you’ll need to be familiar with if you want the high end. It’s amazing to see what tools are readily available to assist with #coppingkicks.
Need a full blown Windows Data Center server? Head to Google’s Cloud Platform and spin one up in seconds. Now you have a remote server to launch your bot assault. Oh wait, you need proxies to differentiate your origin? Scripts are available to create proxies by the masses. Delete when done (or banned) and go again. It’s unreal.
But all of this comes with a cost that should make you think twice about wanting to cop kicks at the high end. All of that mentioned above will cost you. Software bots can range from a few hundred to a thousand dollars and most have periodic renewal subscriptions to keep them active. But a good bot works even better when it knows when to get to work, so you’ll need to pay for a monitor. While you can create your own proxy servers using established tech like Squid, you can also rent them as needed. All set? Not quite. With all this infrastructure, some shoe sites like Nike require valid user accounts to make purchases. After signing up all eligible family members, you have like what, 3 or 4 verified Nike accounts? People can buy verified accounts by the dozen. Configure your bot to send tasks to various proxies using different accounts, and now you’re ready to buy the trendiest out there. Except that there are many, many more with this same exact setup and even better. So after this investment, there’s still no guarantee of #coppingkicks.
Just on a personal sidetrack, it seems like slot providers are the most economical route for personal pairs of shoes. Someone with all the tech sells a “slot” for a shoe release. If the bot for that slot successfully makes a purchase then the shoe is yours after paying a fee to the slot provider for this success. Pay After Success (PAS) fees vary depending on the shoe but can be $75-$200. But if you compare the cost of the bot software, proxies, and accounts, and doing it yourself, that PAS fee is reasonable. You won’t make any personal profit, but you probably have a better chance of landing that shoe you coveted.
So my takeaway from #coppingkicks is to stay away unless you’re willing to spend the time and money to educate and digitally arm yourself.
ResExp: A Costly Lesson Learned
Whenever you’re learning something new, you’re bound to make mistakes. While you can research topics to no end, sometimes, there’s no better way than learning by actually trying… and failing. Like this.
You see, I didn’t realize what ATC links were while #coppingkicks. And in a frenzy trying to purchase profitable Off-White Air Force Ones, caution is greatly diminished due to time constraints. You remember that I told you online buys are measured in seconds. Think too long, and the item is gone. So you just gotta go!
That’s where ATC links come in. These links are Add To Cart, and they do just that. Click on an ATC link, and the associated item is added to a store’s cart and is ready for purchase. Much faster, of course, but you should be cognizant of what you’re adding to cart. In my case, the black Off-White AF1 had released (aka dropped), and restocks were happening. In a string of many notifications for the restocking black OW AF1, I managed to click on an ATC link that led me to a shoe ready for checkout. I successfully completed the order only to discover that I hadn’t purchased an Off-White but instead, I got the Adidas 98 x Crazy BYW Never Made. What’s that you ask? It’s a modernizatin\on of the old Kobe Crazy 8 shoe.
You see during the black OW AF1 restock, the black Crazy 8 shoe was released, mixing the notifications of the two shoes into a fast stream of information. And since you just gotta go, I didn’t notice that the black low-top shoe I added to cart was not an AF1.
Anyone interested in buying this pair of kicks? Actually things could have been worse. Since they are in my size, they are salvagable, and I do have a penchat for old school kicks with modern day tech like the Boost infused in these.
Perhaps I found my badminton shoe for 2019…