the Pebble Spring 2017

Throughout the fairly short history of
reselling, the role of the reseller has changed
and resellers have been questioned about
their role within the sneaker community.
If the idea that a person can buy a pair of
shoes for the retail price and then sometimes
resell them for double or triple the initial
price is not controversial enough, many
resellers (including Lesch) have started to use
programs, or “bots” that put items in a cart
nearly instantaneously when the item releases.
The average consumer who goes online
and purchases the same item has almost no
chance against the person using the bot.
“You have to do what you have to do,”
Lesch said. “We’re not picking out what price
we want to
sell them
for; it’s
only what
the consumer
will
buy them
for.”
The
consumer
is often
forced to
purchase
rare or
hyped
shoes or
clothing
from a reseller due to the use of bots. There
are really two options if a consumer doesn’t
want to go to a reseller. The first option is to
wait for hours in front of a store that has the
shoes or clothing, and the second option is to
sit around with their eyes glued to the computer
screen in hopes of manually ordering
the items online, which is almost impossible,
as resellers can often get multiple pairs of
sneakers or clothing items.
“I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s more
of a reflection on the actual market itself because
they’re able to take total advantage of—
[for] the most part—pretty ignorant buyers,”
said John Bierut, a loyal customer of Aaron
Lesch, sneakerhead and MPH graduate.
On the other hand, Lesch said resellers
help the market.
“Without resellers there would be no
hype,” he said. “I think resellers help divide
and change the community.”
In many cases, these resellers are also
passionate sneakerheads and use their own
money from their resell deals to get the shoes
that they want. The most successful resellers
are the most organized and most informed
as well. Some resellers have argued that part
of the money that they make from reselling
pays for the amount of time they’ve spent on
researching, planning and marketing.
Lesch will spend hours scrolling through
social media such as Instagram and Twitter
and will talk to his reseller friends in order
to make the most educated decision prior
to buying a pair of shoes or clothing item to
resell. The business
is also very
risky, and it’s
extremely hard
to predict if a
pair of sneakers
will be easy to
resell.
“There are
shoes that just
randomly sell
out,” Lesch said.
“Like the Master
12s from last
year… I wasn’t
Photo from http://www.supremenewyork.com/shop even thinking
about purchasing
[them], and then I heard [they] sold out,
and I was like ‘What?’”
Overall, the tricky business of reselling
is not going away. As long as Supreme keeps
dropping anything with its logo on it (literally
anything) and Adidas keeps dropping its
iconic Yeezy sneakers, resellers have nothing
to worry about.
“It’s something that we’re all going to
have to deal with,” Bierut said. “It’s just that
you have to find yourself someone that actually
isn’t going to rip you off.”
Lesch will continue to sit on his computer
every week to program his bot. His
customers will continue to go to him for
the shoes, hats and T-shirts that they didn’t
spend as much time or effort on getting, but
will pay more money to buy.
spring 2017 | 15