Though models like Dunks and Jordans might have dominated the resale market over the past couple of years, it's these same styles that are at risk of becoming oversaturated. In turn, this, of course, pushes down their resale value. The Nike Dunk Low “Panda”, which could resell for as much as £300 at its peak, now has a current market value of around £120 - just £20 over retail, which just goes to show the difference the increased circulation of pairs has made.
As resellers try to shift the stock they’ve been sitting on for some time, many are turning to new ways to gain liquidity. For some, this means adapting to changing product trends - electricals or for a short while, PRIME energy drinks. For reseller Elliot, this has meant moving towards selling through consignment stores, which generally charge higher than private sellers can, therefore helping to protect his profits. “With values dropping it’s been much easier to sell through consignment. Most stores don’t have to lower their prices as much as you would if you based your value on StockX,” he tells us. “In the consignment world, the consumers are people with more money to the point where there’s not much care about how much they’re spending.”
This is not to say the resale market is dead at all though - far from it - instead, it's just kind of preserving itself. Shoes that are still genuinely rare or hyped will still fetch a pretty penny, though buyers with cash are in a much better position to bag themselves a bargain than they would have been this time last year.
Of course, falling resale prices actually open up opportunities for buyers, especially those who see the crisis affecting them more in other areas. Andy , who lives in Manchester, used to enter Offspring’s London-based raffles until inflation caused the train fares to soar, and now finds himself better off paying resale prices instead: “For me, buying resale is a financially better option than winning a raffle at say Offspring or Foot Patrol and travelling to London. At one point I was paying less than £50 for a return train ticket, but now it's nearer to £120 for a return. It makes more sense to pay £300 to a local reseller than win the raffle and spend the same amount and make a 6-hour round trip.”
After talking to more and more collectors, it quickly became clear that there was another solution that could keep the secondary market afloat. Many told us that they were now buying sneakers on a one-in-one-out policy, meaning that the amount of used sneakers changing hands has increased significantly. This doesn’t come as too much of a surprise: GWI data shows that 9% of consumers are planning to buy more second-hand fashion this year, and 16% are planning to sell clothes they own. Plus, second-hand marketplaces such as Vinted have grown hugely over the past couple of years - the site has gone from 1.2 million users in 2021, to 8 million in 2023.
While the rest of the fashion industry has embraced second-hand selling, it seems that it's only now that the sneaker scene is catching up on the same scale. This year, multiple marketplaces have launched the ability to trade pre-worn items - a far cry from the days when undeadstocking your shoes was practically a sin. However, buying used comes with a word of caution - the sellers warn us that there’s not much money to be made on the lower end here, it's only really the grails that are shifting.
