The resell game is a tricky thing, because you aren’t personally making a product. That’s Nike/Jordan/New Balance/whoever’s job. You also aren’t selling a service like a handyman or financial advisor. This makes maximizing resell profits difficult to do, because you can’t just “improve your product.”
You’re buying and selling other company’s products without a whole lot of influence on your end. You are a middle man of sorts.
Because of this, you need to do what you do extremely well to make a profit. You need to be quick to fulfill orders, know a deal when you see it, and be knowledgeable about what shoes will make you money.
If you aren’t, things like double sales and not knowing your full inventory will run your business to the ground quickly.
Having experienced these pains ourselves, we have a few suggestions on how to take your game to the next level.
- Organization really is everything. Tell me with a straight face that the Excel spreadsheet with your entire business on it is 100% accurate AND the most efficient way to run your business. Knowing your inventory is the most important part of your business. However you keep track of what you have, do regular full checks of it. Make sure you have what you think you have, not more, and not less.
- Do your research. There are tons of great sources for sneaker news. Discord and Facebook groups work great. Simply put, buying bricks are a profit-sucker, so you should not cop a pair without doing research on it first.
- Grow your network. The more customers you have, the more sales you have. Meet and connect with other resellers via conventions, social media, or any other way you can. Sometimes they will throw you bulk orders for ridicuously cheap. Other resellers will also buy in bulk. Having a network of other resellers is essential.
- Be careful of what you hold onto. Shoe values fluctuate. Sometimes for no good reason. Look at trends for the shoes you have, and if you think it’s time to let go, it probably is. It’s better to sell a shoe before its peak and still make a profit than to hold on for too long and lose money.
There is no formula for reselling shoes. If you’re flipping hudreds/thousands of pairs a year, keep in mind that you can’t win on every single pair. It’s not easy work. The most important thing to keep in mind is to control what you can control. Do research on your shoes, know what shoes you have, and don’t be careless with your sales.
Oh and also, Copyt can fix just about every problem on this list. While these tips are helpful even when you use an inventory management program like Copyt, if you don’t, Copyt streamlines your whole process by avoiding double sales and not knowing your inventory, among other things.
Mateo Moyon
