While many high schoolers make money by working minimum wage jobs, some of them are able to make a lot of profit through sneaker resale, one of the fastest growing industries in past years, thanks to the internet.
The premise of sneaker resale is simple: buy limited-stock shoes and sell them to desiring “sneakerheads” for a higher price. However, the buying process is a bit more complicated than that. To get these high demand sneakers, one must get to the website before the many other sneakerheads.
As this method is very dependent on human error, many serious resellers use bots to speed up the process and rapidly increase their chances and proxies to get multiple of the highly desired, new shoes. Sophomore Vinay Joshi said, “Now I use proxies, bots, servers, cook groups, etc. I will try to do everything in my power to obtain these exclusive sneakers because I know that I will make a lot from selling them”.
As Junior Nathan Lokenvitz put it, “Guidance is the key to grow as a reseller.” Many aspiring resellers like Lokenvitz and Joshi joined exclusive sneaker groups to get insider information and learn the “ins-and-outs” of the industry from the best of the best. However, this is quite a price to pay to be in these groups; Joshi pays $30 a month to be part of the exclusive Restock World. “Now people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a membership,” Joshi said. “It’s a small price to pay for the wisdom and information I have gained from them. I was able to up my shoe game thanks to them.”
The amount of money made per shoe resale depends on what shoe it is. “$100+ profit is considered very good. There is something called ‘lunch money’ which is selling a shoe for $20-60,” Joshi said. “I say it’s about half and half for lunch money and big cops. I have made as much as $650 profit on one pair and lost some money on others.”
“But at the end, it’s about trying to get as much profit as possible. When I first started out, I bought a lot of bricks or profit loss shoes. But as I have gained experience and knowledge, I have improved my profit margin,” Joshi said. “As more time passes, I hope to improve even more.”
In just the past year, Joshi has made over $2000 profit from sneaker resale. The sneaker resale is estimated to be a $2 billion industry and is expected to triple by 2025, according to Cowen & Co estimates.
Sneaker resale is a booming market and is only going to go up from here. Although it might be stressful and overwhelming at first, the ultimate profits are well worth the investment.
