For the average consumer and sneakerhead that has always wanted a pair of Yeezy’s, maybe, in particular, the Yeezy Boost 350 V2 “Zebras”, patience and a restock may be finally on their side. For resellers on the other hand, things don’t look so great and they are usually the first to grumble and call whatever the model is in question “dead”. In a future article, we’ll take a closer look at whether resale is dead. The other question may be “are they just doing it wrong”?
In the latter half of 2018, it was rumored that the extremely popular Yeezy Boost 350 V2 “Zebra” was getting a restock. The date was initially set for November 10th, but was later moved to November 16th. Historically November 10th, 2018 and November 11th, 2017, both Saturdays, are reserved for Pharrell Williams and the Adidas Hu NMD Trail releases and most brands wouldn’t want to release shoes from two of their top collaborating partners and arguably the most popular releases on the same day. Strategically, that could be a nightmare and is advised against, especially since the Pharrell’s drop in more than one color or iteration.
Consumers who genuinely love a model of a shoe but despise resale prices they’re asked to pay often rejoice over the news of a restock as evidenced by a collective measurement of their year over year sentiment and feedback patterns:
“I’ve always wanted these and can finally get a pair for retail. F$*k resellers.”
I’m not a reseller and as someone who loves sneakers, not just for myself, I’m genuinely happy when consumers can win and believe me 2018 is a winners market for the average consumer and sneakerhead alike. Like no other year in the history of footwear, 2018’s soon approaching end of year sales, generally starting on Thanksgiving and continuing up until the New Year will reward patient and frugal consumers with a plethora of footwear choices and all for the low low.
So about that Yeezy Boost 350 V2 “Zebra” resale price…
Should you do it? Should you cop just to resell? The short answer is no. If you think you’re going to flip this shoe and come out wealthier than Benjamin Kickz , the data suggests otherwise. Let’s look at the last 40 pairs of Zebra’s sold on StockX.
What is this data telling us?
- The mean of the last 40 pairs sold is $274.40.
- The mode (most common number) is $269.
- The lowest recorded sales price when looking at the data points in ascending order was $260.
None of this factors in resellers overhead and the StockX Transaction Fee + Payment Processing Fee. When all data is crunched, a reseller takes home $14-$20 a pair at best on StockX but with unknown overhead (costs), it may be closer to breaking even or a loss.
Sell-Through Rate/Time:
A pair of Yeezy Boost 350 V2 Zebra’s is sold on StockX every 1 minute, 22 seconds on average at the time of this article’s publication. I threw in this stat only because I found that fact fascinating for several reasons we can discuss in the comments or elsewhere.
What about GOAT?
While we don’t have the same data for GOAT, we can see the asking price is at a similar price point as StockX. Going back to the StockX data, could we have predicted this was a poor investment in time and capital for anyone wanting to resell this shoe?
In the above graph I’ve mapped out there is a telling insight here. The remaining year over year resale loss in value is 43.29%. This downward trend continued into the restock sales from November 15th-16th. Here we found our mean selling price of $274.40.
How is eBay doing?
eBay isn’t faring much better because that $276.76 average doesn’t factor in a range of overhead. What insights and takeaways exist here?
- eBay continues to be a really bad platform for resellers to be these days.
- 22 pairs sold out of 96 listed between Nov. 15th – 16th is pretty poor and resulted in only a 23% sell-through rate.
- StockX would be a better place to sell these shoes.
- With “best offer accepted” on several pairs, the average could actually be lower than other platforms.
- Some pairs in the eBay sales data were “pre-owned” from the initial 2017 release.
- Some pairs sold on eBay may have been a 1:1 fake.
Conclusion
Retail stores that have the Yeezy Boost 350 V2 “Zebra” at the MSRP will have zero problems moving them. Resellers who were hoping to bank on them will encounter challenges. Consumer demand is very strong both in the early qualitative and quantitative sales data. Remember, “StockX currently sells a pair of Zebra’s every 1 minute, 22 seconds on average”.
Words of caution to resellers: This is a shoe to leave where they are for customers that actually want them. The larger production numbers are a win for consumers, not resellers. Contrary to reseller sentiment, this model is far from dead. The sentiment for the soon to be released Yeezy 350 V2 “Static” suggests it will do very well at retail. While they should be widely available there are already strong suggestions Adidas needs some Yeezy’s to remain extremely limited.
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