Note: This article may contain affiliate links for the platforms mentioned.

Yeezy’s go for serious money. Pictured above are the Zebras, which went for nearly $2,000 upon the first release in February of 2017.

Despite other platforms coming on to the scene, like StockX and GOAT which are both shoe specific, eBay is still a major player for resellers in the shoe game. If you manage to acquire a rare pair of shoes and intend to sell them for a profit, before listing them you will probably go on eBay and look at the shoe model that you’re selling.

In the case of shoes in the $1,000+ range, you may see a price span going as low as $300 and as high as $1499.

(If you’re brand new to the game and haven’t yet learned how to acquire shoes, I suggest you do your own research or check out The Six Figure Sneakerhead: Hypemaster Playbook.)

All of the listings will be for the same model of shoes. Based on this, for someone new to the sneaker reselling game, this range can make for some confusion when going to list a pair of kicks for sale online.

We’ll go over how to price your shoes based on different metrics that each platform offers, as well as based on your personal risk strategy. Many differences exist for buying on StockX, GOAT and eBay, so we’ll go through each individually throughout this article.

Before we dive into the specifics of at what dollar amount to price your shoes at, it is worth noting that if you’re selling shoes today in 2018, you must learn how to acquire them on release day and list them as soon as possible in order to make profit.

Good news has passed this year promoting a positive outlook for sneaker resellers, with sources like High Snobiety saying that 2018 is the best year ever to resell sneakers, a welcome trend from the opportunity that seemed to be downtrending as of the past few years.

2019 is carrying that momentum, with many more profitable releases coming up.

Some Jordans release that will have resale value on the weekend of the release, and as soon as one week later, sellers will be getting rid of the shoes at a loss.

So speed is of the essence.

Speed is important because in today’s sneaker resale market in 2018, more people are coming into the resale market, saturating it.

Not only are people overwhelmed with options, there is a smaller timeframe of when you can sell your shoes. A golden rule that  I follow when selling new releases is to sell them within 48 hours max, ideally 24 hours of when I made the purchase.

People pay the most during this timeframe, and if you look past this time frame, pairs move more slowly and the week after prices can drop significantly. You also want to ship out priority mail the same day you get the kicks so people get them soon. People want to be seen with the newest shoes right when they drop. In some places like NYC or LA, even wearing them a week after your friends got them is too late.

So this article is a little more advanced and geared towards those who already know how to acquire shoes at retail and want to know the best business practices on the selling side.

eBay

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How to use eBay’s filters to see what items have sold based on your search.

On this speed note, eBay is a good because you can sell shoes before you even get them, if you’ve ordered them online. If you manage to get them on the release day, put up a legit screenshot of your order, with personal info blurred out. Some people blur out the order number because they’re afraid someone might cancel their order, but in my opinion this is not necessary as I’ve never heard of anyone taking the time to go through the process of cancelling Nike orders, no matter how salty they are.

This precaution is more common with Supreme orders, but from personal experience, even if I have my order number and am trying to cancel my order, it’s nearly impossible to do so because the line rarely ever picks up even after multiple calls over the course of an hour or so.

When selling Nike orders, it can even be seen as a positive to discreetly include your order number in the screenshot so that people know that it’s actually you that ordered the shoes and that you didn’t steal someone else’s screenshot, which people can easily do and do do on eBay. So relieve their suspicions by doing all that you can to prove that the screenshot is actually yours.

Before pricing the shoes, use eBay’s sold/completed listing tool.  Not only will you see how hot the market is, you’ll see the prices that people are willing to pay.The way underpriced are fakes.

Don’t price in the same ballpark as these sellers, even if you’ll make a profit.

People will think they’re fake and you’ll drive the market price down, both situations are good for absolutely no one. If you see a history of multiple preorders selling before the release day and more than 5 shoes per hour on the release day, you’re dealing with a hot release. You can also begin to notice trends of certain sizes being worth more than others.

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I remember when I first started selling the original Yeezy 750’s, size 8 was particularly valuable, being worth up to 50% more than something like a size 12. Take note of what people are paying for your actual size. If you see an occasional higher price for the same size, it is likely because the pair was the only available in that size.

After reviewing the sold listings, and taking note of the previously mentioned metrics, price your shoes as follows:

If the market is hot: price in between the lowest and highest sold price in your size

If the market is slow: price at the lowest sold listing, even slightly lower than the lowest sold listing at a profit that you’re comfortable taking.

One thing to note is that if you have the last size available, in both a slow or hot market, you can initially price at or near the highest last sold price, given that your shoe remains the same size. Check back every 30 minutes or so, or you can use eBay’s tools to follow new listings of X shoe for X size, and get notified right on your mobile phone so you can see what it’s priced at.

Some people like to overprice and use the Best Offer tool. I recommend offering Buy It Now and price as instructed above, so you don’t have to deal with the back and forth of offers and counteroffers as well as the inevitable offensive lowball that will probably piss you off.

GOAT/StockX

GOAT, an App that is becoming popular with shoe resellers.
GOAT, an App that is becoming popular with shoe resellers.

GOAT you have to wait until you have the shoes in hand, and by then the price will have probably dropped significantly. If you were able to get the shoes in person on the day of the release,  I recommend using GOAT as from my experience, people buy in a higher volume on the release day on trusted platforms like GOAT and StockX.

You can also sometimes list the shoes for a higher price than eBay, although in the case of StockX and as a new GOAT seller, the fees will probably work out to be slightly higher than if you were to sell on eBay. Although you can’t see the volume of shoes on GOAT, you can see a decent history on StockX, and both sites will tell you the latest sold price up front without having to toggle with settings, which makes it very easy to know how to price your shoes.

Always price your shoes right at the last sold price or at the average, never above, because again, speed is of the essence and the value of shoes is always highest on the release day.

Having an account with StockX (you can sign up here if you don’t have one) will give you an edge when it comes to buying and selling expensive sneakers with the extensive pricing data like shown in the picture below.

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A look the awesome metrics that StockX provides at first glance

Wrapping up

So it’s best to tend towards underpricing in favor of speed, so long as you make a profit. It’s said that the fast nickel is better than the slow dime. If you only make $80 off the flip rather than $120, and if the $80 took you less than 24 hours and the $120 took you nearly a week, it would have been best to quickly take your $80 profit and reinvest right away to make use of compound interest.

Also, the $80 profit is from a couple hundred in revenue, bank that is currently tied up that you can reinvest quickly. It’s also much less stressful knowing that you’ve made a sale and you can move on and look for more investment opportunities. As long as you’re making a profit and quickly reinvesting for another quick profit, you’ll grow your business bigger and bigger, and isn’t that what you want when flipping shoes?

Recap/TL;DR:

-Check price range on eBay, GOAT and StockX

-Speed is king. The fast nickel better than slow dime

-Reinvest quickly and watch the magic of compound interest grow your bank 🙂

*We have an exclusive guide, the Hypemaster Playbook, which is available that will take you deeper into best practices for selling shoes across different platforms, the best ways to acquire sneakers through manual methods and using sneaker bots, and how to scale your business. Get it here to jump start your resale business, or to give you an edge over other resellers who don’t have the knowledge or seriousness that you have.*

Take your reselling game to the next level

Author

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JVG

JV was inspired to start Six Figure Sneakerhead after having more people asking questions than he could answer about sneaker reselling when they saw the success he was having. His intention is to create the top resource for sneaker resale education worldwide and loves to see when customers succeed, and he's always accepting feedback for all offerings which are constantly updated to suit the customer needs and the current times.

Comments (2)

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  1. Phillip Szerlag

    So I get that the key is to sell quick before people get their shoes delivered who bought them online and start to sell them, but doesnt it make sense to hold on to some shoes for a like 4-6 months to make a few more bucks? Refering to the crimson tints specifically on this, in that they are somewhat profitable, but like.. it doesnt hurt to wait right?

  2. Peter Wright

    Are there any 3rd party “listing management” systems that work with the smaller sneaker apps like StockX, Kixify, etc?