234/ Sneaker Dad's Takeover

Welcome to episode 234 of the In Kicks We Trust podcast.

This is a takeover episode brought to you by me, John, from Sneaker Dads. My guest this week is Tong, that magnetism. You should know him. If you don't, you're going to get to know him today. Welcome. Hey, John, how's it going? Good. We haven't talked in a little while. You've definitely been on my podcast a few times and sort of keep in touch here and there, but I know you're busy and so am I. We'll get into all that stuff, but my format's a little different on Sneaker Dad.

So as a takeover episode, we're sticking to the In Kicks We Trust format, which the listeners know and love, and I do too. We'll start with wares and pickups.

Now let's do some wares. I don't want to guess what you're wearing, but I have an idea. But who knows? You're chasing around a two-year-old now, so maybe you're not wearing Air Force Ones anymore. Yeah, definitely not.

What do you wear? definitely new balance more often some on on running but yeah mainly new balance just feel like the easy slip on it's just the easy choice to go to so yeah i mean nike not so much if i'm on by myself without taking care of the kid then probably nike here and there but definitely new balance trev trevor would be happy to hear that you're wearing on he's a big fan i'm not there Yep, I did get my first pair of hokas. I'll talk about that too.

So you just abandon everything that you believe in now and you just, new balance and on. You just don't care anymore. Is that one? No, I'm kidding. It's practicality, right? It's more, it really, like to be honest, like if you asked me two years ago, it'd be a different answer, right? So like people change over time, circumstances, environment also change. So obviously, like I said, based on the change in environment,

you got to go with what works for you, right? Like I don't have time to put on a Travis. I can't go to the zoo for four hours wearing a pair of Air Force One. My feet would die. So I definitely need something more comfortable that I can outlast and not cry about after the four hours, right? Yeah, I feel you. I'm just teasing. I'm in the same boat. It's not just the chasing the kids around, you know, we're getting up there a little bit and, you know, comfort's key.

And, you know, trends have changed, right? I mean, we'll, we'll talk about that too, but, uh, you know, whereas rocking a pair of new balances once would have put you in that dad category. Now, uh, everyone's wearing them. So I'll, I'll do my wares. I do throw on the Crocs and the new balance comfort ones by the door, but I got an opportunity to grab the better DNA. I was, I have to admit, I was totally convinced by the marketing.

They sent me the early, early access. Cause I buy gear from them and hats and stuff and I didn't buy them. But then all the great marketing that my team from Nike and Better did, I grabbed the DN8s and I love them. I've been wearing them. All the time they're actually in my rotation. I usually put stuff kind of away in the closet for a while, but these ones came right out. The other one I mentioned earlier that I got my first pair of Hokus, they're the Spencer Badu ones.

They're yellow and black. He's a Toronto designer. He's also from Ghana. I have a connection to Ghana. I spent some time there and he tributes the, you know, he plays tribute to his heritage there. So I grabbed those. They're super comfy.

The style is not really something i'm i don't know how to style it yet but the comfort's there so those will probably be in the rotation too now you know this i this one i'm i was really curious and pickups maybe we're gonna have to talk about what you're picking up for your two-year-old or your wife or what what you're picking up i mean you said you you have a pair of ons is that a new pick up uh no no like well i mean i'm sort of a different guy you would ask right like i have.

I see shoes every day so yeah it's more of like sometimes i put i put up put away a pair something comes in i put away a pair i'm like i'm probably gonna wear that and then after a month i'm just like i never even opened the box i'm just like okay we're not touching nose sometimes there's that one or two pair that comes in it's like oh man i really want to wear these right now and yeah that's where i put it on exceed and like to be honest not many

shoes because like i said to me i i usually don't buy a lot of shoes like ironically as as it sounds like i see shoes every day so it's just like more so i the less the better for me like i hate to see a crowded space at home with a bunch of shoes like i try to keep like if i'm having 10 pairs i'm just gonna if i'm the 11th pair i'm gonna get rid of one pair first to to get another pair so i mean yeah in terms of pickup like i think definitely right now the only thing that really looks like

when i see a wow factor is probably just new balance just because i don't get the colorway and i'm like okay this is something fresh it's comfortable like i don't even have to question comfort right so it's more like okay i know it's comfortable already now how do we look on feet and that's how i decide now, So wait, is New Balance is an example of something that came in and you put aside a pair like some, what are we talking about?

Yeah so well basically the new ones that come out right like i'm not i'm not a big fan of like it the new balance game is very different from nike right nike we all hope to grab the next travis the next collab the next hype sneaker i'm actually not really a big fan of that anymore because i know it might look good but it won't feel good on feet right so but like for me it's like even new balance like they don't need to do a collab where you just look

at it it's like oh that's that's fresh right like it's something they've never done before and to me i think that's that's kind of the shoe like i'm not looking for shoes that would what we call neck breaking 20 years ago right we're looking for shoes that are subtle and just looks good and feels good for me like i'm not there to impress anyone else right so whatever feels good for me is the formula now so you're notorious at least as far as i know not when

you're at an event if you're at an event you know you'll break something out but for you know wearing a white air force one maybe maybe a collab air force but usually going with the white you know there's not too many all white new balances does that mean you got more color in your game mainly gray okay no like i i mainly stay with the subtle gray like i hate picking i'm not the type of guy where i'm gonna wear a red shirt today and I'm going to pick a red shoe to go with my fit.

I'm not that type of guy. I'm going to be like red shirt, white shoes, purple shirt, white shoes. So no Joe Fresh goods, no action bronzes. Yeah, those are too loud for me. I got excited. Those are good. I kept the pair for myself and I sell them too, but it's just more so like I can't wear that every day. So I'm not going to go for those. I go for the very tone, neutral tone, new balances, which it will fit every occasion.

Because when you're going out the door with the kid, whining to go outside, you don't have time to pick. You just go with whatever's at the door. Yeah. Yeah. So does that mean, we might get into this a little deeper later. Does that mean there's not a ongoing eBay list, purchase hunting, maybe, or, you know, you got someone looking for a thing, you know, you have different people or you're looking yourself. Is there, is there, have there been any of those recently?

So, yeah. Go ahead. It's very different now. I mean, like it's, I don't know, maybe it comes with age. I think we talked about this a couple of years ago where there's not a shoe where we don't know about. It's not like, oh, I've never seen those before. Where do we get those? Right. Like we know what's coming six months, 12 months ahead. And once you see it, the whole kind of, I need to get those kind of fades.

Right. So I haven't had one of those shoes where I need to get it on my list. kind of thing. And yeah, it doesn't happen anymore. I understand. But speaking of shoes, we've seen, I'll do my recent pickups. I did pick up the white cement fours. Another one that I was kind of knew I didn't need. I sold a pair of, I guess it would have been 99s. That was the first retro, right? You swapped. Yeah. I sold those and I don't know why. I'm trying to figure out who I sold them to. Can't remember.

You want to get them back? Yeah, I want them back. I got the new ones. I actually might have one. I might have your size. Yeah. I'm swapped. Yeah. Why? Is it because you don't like the new retro? No, I like the new retro. It's just as I'm buying the new retro, I realized I probably sold that swapped pair for not much more because you know how much retros are going for. It's like, I didn't sell it for 600. No one wanted it for that much. I just probably sold it for 300 or 324 or whatever.

I sold it for exactly what I, anyway. So I kind of felt stupid, but I got them. Is that the kind of pair you put one aside for? No, you wouldn't do that. No, I'm like... I'm thinking because it's white. It's not one of your favorites. Well, I do have a pair just because it's a white cement four, but will I ever wear it? Probably no. But in your size? Yeah, in my size. I usually... So like certain pairs that... Well, not the 99, like the new retro set.

Yeah. I don't aim to go back in history to go find certain shoes because realistically, shoes over a certain period of time, it's just not wearable.

And more so now i'm not gonna like compare to what we used to wear shoes like i would probably like duck seed that shoe because i want to protect it now i just wear shoes for the sake of wearing shoes like i bend over like you gotta like bend over climb climb over fire and all that stuff like outside when you're trying to chase your kid right like you're not gonna think about okay how durable that shoe is like if you wear a 99 it'll probably like crack

on you or you know like all that kind of stuff like if you wear old older shoes so now it's more like okay i need the newest stuff but like clean and wearable and durable yeah i know i know the pair of og4s white black sorry fire red 4s that jan restored for me he did an amazing job and he does you know the oil treat me does everything to it. Um, everything you can do and put them on and, um.

They were good, but you see that every time you're going to wear it, you see deterioration in the leather. I don't, he never made any promises to me that it would be perfect. It's not, it's not sort of ripping apart. Like my, I have a pair of, I guess it would also be 99 black cement. Yeah. The new book, like cracks, right? Yeah. It's just time. You can't avoid those. They're not as bad as that, but I mean, it looks cool, but yeah, I don't know.

I know you had a pair of those so I don't know if you want to give us an update on that or not but you don't have to yeah save that for another day. Air Max won the 6 I actually traded with Kellen we did a 3 person trade, Kellen got my DS size 11 that pair is getting up there in age even the dead stock pairs are a little bit yellow now Christian and flipping laces out of size 12. So he got money. I got the 12. Kellen, Chef Kreisel got the 11. That's an extremely difficult trade to pull

up. Not when there's Dlizzle Mania. There's Dlizzle Mania just happened. And next year, you got to come through because we all met up there. So otherwise, it would be hard. My wife got a pair of Story MFG Gel Venture 6. So I bought them for her, so I'm mentioning that. It's like a gingham, which is like basically like, It looks like a picnic blanket, so I have to mention that because my sneaker picks up pickups are still pretty quiet these days.

I want to take it back. We've talked about a little bit on my podcast, but the Kicks We Trust listeners may not know your sneaker journey. We won't be able to take it too far. And I want to talk about what you're doing now and where you are now. But maybe we can do a bridged version when it started to sort of matter to you, when you started to care or pay attention to sneakers. Well, I was on my way back. That's probably like high school. And if I tell you the year,

you'll probably guess my age. But I think we're all up there, so it doesn't really matter. So it's probably like the first kind of SB line.

So that's like probably around early 2000. and like jordan's was cool but like it wasn't really it didn't really jive with me that much like but when the first sb line came up that's where i really went crazy where it's like oh i have to get those and the worst part was we couldn't get those so what makes sneaker culture fun back then maybe not anymore but like it's just like how do we get those and that's kind of like that hunt right so like i

remember in the black cements the first one the black cements and the white cements from supreme that's kind of be like wow they put a jordan 3 on a dunk and it's like you've never really seen that before and then that's where kind of i got into sneakers quite a bit and to be frank we were probably all poor during high school it's like how do we come up with five six hundred dollars by a pair of shoes right like back then we were talking about a hundred

dollar per per shoot like in the early 2000s right and we're talking about 2001 royals and breads going on discount for 99 so 500 was a big thing back then and we're just like how do we come up with 500 so you guys sell some shoes and then that's where you kind of understand the game a little bit like how do we sell our shoes to buy what we want so that kind of started and then And then I kind of stopped out of sneakers when I was in university because I was even

more poor because now you got to pay tuition. So back then in high school, you don't have to pay tuition, but then now you're on tuition and then you're like, well, okay, that's three, $4,000 a semester. Sneakers is definitely not out of the question. And then that's where I kind of fell off for sneakers for a bit. But then when I got my first job and kind of that's where I built it up again, I'm like, I want to buy all the shoes I sold because I went to school.

And then now, then I realized, oh shit, there's money to be made because I bought a pair of shoes and I'm just like, I didn't even wear it yet. And I'm just like, oh, someone's willing to pay. I bought it for 500 and someone's willing to pay like five, six, seven, like six, $700 for it. And I haven't even wore it yet. And that's when I got kind of that aha moment where it's like, okay, can I just sell two or three more and get mine for free?

And then that's kind of where that night kind of started. And then that was 12 years, 12 years ago. So now we're on 13 year, uh, like September is going to be my year 13. Was there a specific pair that you, that it clicked that there's opportunity that maybe that maybe it was pre, pre when you had to go to university or after where it was kind of like, oh wait, wow.

There's, you, you mentioned, you mentioned a few pairs, but those were ones you wanted, not necessarily ones you were selling, right?

Uh well i remember most video one was definitely the tiffany don't guess below and the heinekens and those are two of my favorite shoes they're a lot of sneakers but do i wear them often probably not back then but like i still i love looking at them and it's just the shoe that you don't need to sell everyone's always everyone was always looking for it so it's like it's a very easy shoe to sell and to me i just wanted to keep a pair because i like i just love the whole concept But like I said,

they just ran with that idea as B and then it's just, I'm sure everyone knows about it. And like I said, it's just no brainer. Those are the two pairs for sure. Off the top of my head. I probably sold like a hundred pairs of those over the years.

I wanted these listeners to know a little bit about some of the pairs that I don't want to say you're known for, but maybe that it's more fair to say you went viral. In fact, you actually did a whole thing, a capsule, if I'm not mistaken. It was a long time. Can you tell us about that? It was for the fives, right? No, so the fives were prior to that. Oh, sorry. We did a, that one was more like a all supreme low speed. Those were, sorry, getting my stuff confused.

It's the same guy, same guy who did the video.

Yeah, same guy that did the video. so the t23 was an interesting one because it was just one of those moments you know how instagram could be like they're like one person cannot have that many pairs right because back then like t23 and they still are they're still pretty rare to get but people didn't know that i'd buy a lot from japan and that's where all the pairs were right so obviously it makes sense so at one point i had like i think i had like 10 pairs

and someone was commenting you know and then it kind of went viral like people were like there's no way one person can have 10 pairs it must be fake and they're like oh i have more than 10 pairs i'm like probably at one point i had like 25 pairs and we were doing that video just i don't know just for fun it was just kind of like a say nothing just to do our thing and and kind of that video kind of took off but that was one story the other story was the, the Dunk Supremes.

I want to talk about, sorry, before you move on, I want to talk about the, the Tokyos, the T23s, because, because. It wasn't just like, I mean, it's marketing, right? I mean, you're, you're, you're, you're not just showing them because I mean, maybe a little bit back then you were a little bit, you'd like to stunt a little bit and show people, but I mean, you had, you were selling sneakers, right? And you were selling a lot of, it was different than now, right?

You were selling a lot of, like you said, stuff from Japan and things like that. And, you know, you were one of, I don't know, a handful probably of people in North America that were doing it and people could find really rare parents from you guys that they couldn't find anywhere else. Right. I mean, that was your business, right? Yeah. I mean, I was also younger. Right. So, I mean, I think like at that time of Instagram, we were all kind of just like, who can get the most follows?

Like, I think we were kind of playing that game. And because like, I mean, if we were doing it today, it'll be a total different story. Like, even if I had 25 pairs, I would try to let no one know. And I don't want to get robbed. Like, we're kind of living in that kind of society where it's just like, I don't want to be known. but back then I was also probably 10 years younger.

Yes, one was more like a kind of like a clap back at those that were making those comments, but more so of two is like, it gained traction. And the more attention you got means probably a higher chance of getting more sales. And I think it was twofold. And I think the person that was helping me do the video, he just started doing like he used to do interior design, and then he's like starting just to get into videography. And so that was kind of his first video kind of he made.

So I was able to get a good price from him. Like he ended up doing like right now, he's probably doing like, you know, set videos for for TV shows and movies. So, I mean, I think that video helped him, too. But I mean, at the same time, I think that was kind of the reason why we did it back then.

Yeah. Sorry, I wanted you to tell the story about the Supreme Lowe's as well, though. Oh, yeah. So that one was it was not really a stunt or anything.

More so it was kind of like like a vision i really wanted to to see in real life like because i think at that time it was more like we would never walk into a sneaker store and be able to see hype releases even till today you probably won't see it like say uh a travis scott drops you'll never see it on this on the store shelf because it will sell out before that happens right so at that time i kind of like okay i bought so many supremes and and i

just felt like hey wouldn't it be cool to kind of just display it on a store and have people kind of experience it like just actually see it on a shelf and i had like 72 pairs at that time like yeah it's like 72 pairs like to fill basically that hole yeah we had the red black and the white uh and i'm just like it'll be cool before i start selling it and yeah and then i felt like people had a great can get a good experience it from it and then also the guy that helped me did the videography for.

The video he also does art as well so we kind of like hey let's just do one night where people come around and just enjoy the night and see that visual that you probably will probably never get to see again right so i think that was kind of the goal it was definitely not to stunt it was more like have people to come in and kind of enjoy how quickly did you realize that going overseas for pairs was was a good way to do business well i mean at that time well looking back the currency

was also very favorable the yen was super cheap the u.s dollar was super high so the same shoe like for me to buy it in say u.s dollar terms it's probably like 200 for example 200 but then the same shoe will sell for like three four hundred on the u.s side that's because japan used to be like a place where you can't they don't.

Sell to foreigners like they they're very local they they don't like to go international so at that time i used to buy bear bricks from a guy like i would use i would he would i would send him a link and be like yo can you buy this for me can you bid on this for me and then i'll pay you and then you ship everything to me into canada and then that's how and he made to spread and i obviously get product that no one could usually have.

Access to so like speaking of like say bustle the ninja right like that's why he has so many good deals because back then the yen was so cheap still is so cheap people are like how does he get good deals it's because the yen like the same shoe selling at the same price just from the dollar conversion that's that's their spread that's their margin so was it was it also though the supply of certain things there or was it really just a currency thing because i got

the impression that yeah you were finding pairs almost easier there right than you would or supply is depends on the product so i think during the early like 2000s and 1990s they were actually a strong hoarder like japan was a big buyer of all jordan's sbs like they a lot of buyers were buying it from japan and then kind of we hit that trend where it's like people were selling them now so i caught on when it was kind of the trend they were selling like

they used to be buying a lot so you have that's why they have a lot of og 95 breads concord jordan lemons that's why you see so many there because they were the biggest buyers well one of the bigger buyers from america over to japan so now when they were selling because they probably felt like they don't want to keep been. Anymore, that's where we were buying. Yeah. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about what's going on now, but I want one more story if you could, I think this is a good one.

How you got your name, your, where net magnetism came from, because a lot of people wonder like.

What it is and i think it's i think everyone should know that one yeah that was an interesting one like i think i think it was during university like i used to sell on ebay a lot but then it's just my my feedback was like back then feedback was very important so i realized that i need a higher feedback to get a more rapid reputation and higher reputation means higher price you can sell at uh at the time my co-worker dad had an ebay account from 1999 and he

used to sell a lot of stuff and he had like 700 plus.

Feedbacks and then i'm like oh can i borrow your account i want to sell some stuff right and then and then yeah and then it wasn't and his name was net ninetism and then i was like all right you know what i'm just gonna go with this name i'm not even gonna change the name i'm just gonna go with this name and then somehow i mean hindsight it actually worked out because i think in sneaker selling i think or anything in terms of business you you want to have a unique name right

like if people search net magnitude room on google right now they'll find me i'll be at the top but versus if i was like toronto sneaker seller for example there's going to be a ton of results and you're going to be stuck in a pool of people that were kind of it's going to be hard for people to find you so i think that worked out in that sense so yeah that's how the name came and it was my colleague's dad's ebay username

funny how things work out yeah so let's bring it to now obviously not not not doing as much business on ebay these days can you tell the listeners a little bit about where you're where you're focused yeah i mean the last three years, we've been heavily focused on whatnot.

So that's like the live selling platform. Yeah, like three years ago, I think, you know, Bryson from Untied Hawaii, he went to whatnot. And when he first hit me up, they were looking for sellers, basically, because it was still like very new. And they needed reputable sellers to go on and just have sellers.

They have the buyers but there's no sellers so they were offering us contracts to to just go live and be like if you can hit these sales targets we're gonna pay you five grand and yeah it was a win-win situation i think and then uh i didn't expect much at the time because we're like we were already selling on ebay our own website and stock x and it was working all right already but then once we got a taste of what not and what the new,

like kind of a new way of selling. And then we're like, oh shit.

We're onto something and that was three years ago and two years later we're still we're still heavily focused on that but things change so it's like it's like a cycle it's like like ebay used to be really good for us but it ended up doing really bad because i guess there's a lot of changes stock exchange used to be really good but they're still good but like i think like it's always a trend and then ebay is probably getting back into live selling

so we might see a shift there again So it's like every couple of years, you just got to adapt to what's, what's fresh. Right. So. Yeah. I know you don't stick to just one and you adapt to the market. You know, I wanted to ask you about live selling because not just on whatnot, but it's really taken off. Right. And, and you were, you were on whatnot when it was, I don't know. Pretty sleepy at, at the very beginning even. Right. I mean, your streams weren't anything.

I don't think what they were now was the beginning. It was the early days, but now, you know, I see people selling hats. They're selling toys or something. I mean, it's blown up and there's other competition. So, I mean, I'd love your perspective on, you know, the, the, the popularity of it. Why you think it's taken off? I mean, from a seller aspect, the reason why it's taken off is because it sells fast. Like you can turn over super fast.

Like literally I can buy a hundred pairs and I can literally sell all hundred pairs in within two hours.

That's like a seller's dream, right? Like, you know, like anyway. obviously at prices that that makes sense right you're obviously not selling at a loss but you're actually technically making money right so even if you sell 100 pair and you break even on 25 but you make you make money on 75 pairs that's that's a seller's dream right there right so i think from that perspective it's super lucrative and i think at the time when i joined i still remember and people

like from a buyer's perspective they're probably like what what what is live extremely like i'm not gonna have time like 6 p.m you're going live on 6 p.m i'm eating dinner at 6 p.m right that kind of mentality which i get because i find myself if i was to be on the buyer side like you really have to dial in at that time and be like joining and kind of like seeing what they're selling because not like online shopping right

now if i don't click on it if i don't click add to cart now it's cool it's going to be there next three hours later i'll still be able to kind of purchase it so the whole buying behavior is a big thing for buyers to adjust to but i think what will make it lucrative is that if.

All the sellers start moving there. And if buyers buy from specific sellers, like for example, if a lot of people are from me prior to whatnot, and then say I'm moving to whatnot, and I'm giving pretty good deals, I think we're able to kind of convert some of those buyers into actual live stream buyers. And that's where it gets powerful.

But I mean, even till today, like, I know, when we first started whatnot, as a seller, it was the app was dead, like, It was definitely not where it is today, but I think most sellers are catching on now and they're like, okay, it could be the next big thing and we better get started now.

And that was kind of my mindset in the beginning because I'm like, okay, if I were to live sell, I want to be a pioneer in that space because if everyone was to join, it would be too hard to compete with existing sellers already that are big names. So that's kind of when I said the win-win situation where when they asked me to do live streaming, that's where it kind of made sense for us.

How much is there a social aspect? Like it seems like there's a community there in your chat and these guys, you know them, they know each other. They're gifting each other things. Like it's like pretty wild in there sometimes. Like people are throwing each other pears. I don't know what's going on.

It is it is wild but i think that's just the well that's kind of the whatnot culture i think that's why you see a bunch of giveaways there's there's like what we call a sponsor giveaway so what happens is someone in the chat will buy a pair of shoes from the seller to give it away to the audience. I mean, there's twofold. One, either you're rich and generous, or the second one is people just want a shout out.

So a paid shout out. So because maybe they're a small seller and say Cool Kicks is going on live and they have 1,500 people in the live, they would sponsor a giveaway and be like, hey, can you shout me out kind of thing. So you're paying for advertisement, but that's kind of like the only two options we have. But like, I mean, yeah, but like prior to that, it was more authentic because people were actually super generous.

But that's also during COVID where money was easy, where money was just flying all west, right, and center. So you don't see that as much anymore. But that was kind of the culture at the beginning. And I think what most people... I feel, like you said, back to your point where people were feeling like everyone knows each other. That's really based on the seller. And it's more like, okay, it's like a hangout, you would say, right? Like, all right, let's see what net mag is selling tonight.

And at the same time, I see all the same buyers or people that are joining and they'll say what's up to each other in the chat. So I feel like it's more like a hangout and it's more like an environment where if I want to buy shoes, great. And then I'm just basically the host and whoever wants to buy shoes that night, then that's where we sell to. Totally. Like, you know, if I need to talk to you, I should go into your whatnot. I shouldn't send you a text.

You won't reply, but the whatnot, you're like, John's here. And I was like, I get a shout out. I don't even have to ask for one. I just have to put a comment. So yeah, it is, it is different. It is weird, but I mean, like I said, things could change, like things are changed so fast. It's, it's, it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of that, I wanted to ask because, you know, we talk.

We sell, but I wanted your perspective on the retail game because since COVID huge changes in the retail game, we have, you know, you know, I don't want, you don't have to talk about take-goes or it was a footlocker or whatever but just overall the retail game i mean it seems like these stores know that they need to provide something that customers can't get online but you know investing in brick and mortar it's the same old story right you got to invest you

got to have people who care about the product you got to pay them right i mean what let's talk about retail first what what you see and then maybe we could talk a little bit about resale yeah so it's a very good question because it had changed a lot so i mean typical resale game let's start with the resale first and then we'll blend into the retail so as you can tell 2025 2024 end of 2024 wasn't a great year

for sneakers in terms of prices and resellers live off resale prices of course so obviously. Resellers strive retailers strive but now as we can tell prices like even like it's ridiculous right like some pairs you would think would go crazy on resell and just just dead right like perfect example wu-tangs wu-tang dunks that came up last year i would expect much higher like dollar value because of the demand we would expect right but those are just selling.

For maybe 50 100 bucks above retail so if we're playing in that game resellers are gonna die like they're gonna die off first because there's no point of sitting for a drop or trying to grab the the latest drops because there's no money in there and when that happens it trickles down to the retailers and like i said this year you've seen so many retail shops not just sneakers just close right so it's just like if you can't make money at 50 margin then what

do you expect for reselling like like if retailer you're getting say a hundred dollar pair of shoes you're getting for 50 and you can't even survive at that that tells a lot about the sneaker game i think footlockers probably running into that issue because like i said they have to be bought out because they're probably struggling too like they they can't move product and i think and the end game is who can move the product above that 50 margin range

and like i said you go to stock x look at any gr if you're selling those prices are below 50 like the game's over and and we're actually sitting very close to those numbers right now so so that's kind of the state of the market right now So retailer perspective, it's just like. Who's going to be next, right? So. You know, you've talked, I think a lot on...

My podcast or a couple of times or, or elsewhere a little bit, at least about, you know, how the opportunity, you know, really is, or an opportunity is in, you know, volume and, and not necessarily trying to do that big flip and, you know, finding an underpriced shoe that you could do.

And I know you do a lot of that. I don't want to talk too much about, about, about what you do, but, you You know, it seems when I go online this morning and I try to, I wasn't going to get them anyway, maybe, but if they were available, the new Agassiz, and I know they don't do, they don't pump out a lot of them. So that's probably why it's sold out. But in my mind, I say, okay, the resellers grabbed this because they think they can get 50,

maybe, maybe dollars. Do you think that's still happening? Are those still people doing that? And then, because, you know. The same with the white cements, they, they went, or is it, or is it collectors like me? Because if you go on Facebook marketplace or stuff, or, you know, those, those Nike rejuvenates or things like that, they're not going for a lot, but there's still, someone's making 50, 50 bucks on them. So it seems like that is still maybe not a good business, but a thriving one.

It still seems like a lot of people are doing it thriving in the sense that a lot of people are doing it. Maybe they're not making rich. Yeah. Like I said, when you're desperate, $20, $30 is reselling. If there's $20, $30 to be made, people will go. But if you ask these people five, six years, or even during COVID times, $20, $30 profit, that's too little. I can't do that. But now we're in that timeframe where it's just like $20, $30,

you'll buy all the pairs. It's good, right? So I think that's kind of, yeah, there's still definitely people out there like that, but definitely much less, much less. So that's why, and I think Nike knows that. So like you said, the Agassiz, they're not going to make 200 pairs, right? They're going to make enough just to sell out and they don't want pairs to be sitting. So they're trying to do the numbers. And like I said, like we talked about this, even for Jordan retros, right?

Like, no retailer is going to order, like, say, the Jordan 14, like, say, like, Jordan 14 Ferrari, yeah, people would like it. But at the same time, people don't know how it's really going to do because of the Jordan 14, right? They're not going to order that many pairs versus the Jordan 5 grape. Oh, they're going to be, everyone's going to need the Jordan 5 grape. So let's order more. And then Mikey makes more.

So that's why it's that supply and demand game. And it's so hard to predict because no one actually knows what the final number is. No one knows how many pairs have been produced. So yeah, like I said, it's. $20, $30, there are definitely resellers that will go for that, but I think that's much less than what it used to be. Right. And obviously what I was talking about before, what you have.

Expanded on in part of what you think is an appropriate business approach is if you're selling 100 or 200 pairs at even $10 profit, that's different, but buying two pairs at $30 and driving downtown to get your gas, that's a tough business to run. But I also, you mentioned Jordan's in the great fives and, you know, we talked about the White's events. It seems like it's at least working a little bit, the strategy of reducing. And we've seen it before, right? It's not a new formula, right?

It's, and everyone talks about it. It's reducing the numbers, build up the hype. Like the last year, you know, people have been talking about Jordan's a little more, right? They've been talking about, I mean, that's, unless they come up with a new strategy, that's the only way, right? I mean. Well, I mean, like I said, if margin's not there, you either pump up the volume or if the margin is there, then obviously reduce the volume. So it's the same game, but it's just how they play the numbers.

And like I said, the only number we don't know is how many pairs are out there. And we will never know. But I think from a consumer standpoint, I think this is what they always ask for, right? Like people have always been complaining, I can't get a pair of this. I can't get a pair of this. But realistically, are you happy now? I'm not asking from a reseller standpoint or a business standpoint. I'm just asking from a consumer standpoint, does this really make you happy now?

Because the answer probably you're kind of undecided too, right?

Because now you see it's so available and you're like, do i want it like you get what i'm trying to say like like do i still want it if it's sitting on a shelf i don't know so it's like now the now the question's back on the consumer is just like okay now you see some jordan threes on the shelf are you buying it they're available right so but back then you don't see on the shelf you're complaining it's like well like i'm probably a victim of that too because i'm just like

because i know because if i walked in the store and they're sitting on the store and I don't want to be wearing those because it's not cool. Like if I were younger, right. So I'm looking at, I would say not amazing, but very good retros of black cement threes, white cement fours, Wu-Tang dunks. Chlorophyll Air Max ones, Kobe nine masterpieces.

Some of the, you know, my favorite pairs of all times and what people would consider grails and they'll probably forever because my son's going to outgrow them and I'll, I might even sell them for what I paid for, or who knows, maybe a loss, but, and it's because, and I'm happy to have them. Like I need to have them. Of course, I'm like everyone else. You need them, but I don't really need them. And some people skip them. Right. And that's the state, right?

Because they have the old retro or things have slowed down. Right. I mean, it has slowed down, right. The, the, the market. It's not gone. I mean, people say sneakers are dead. They're never going to be dead, but. Not dead. I mean, it's just people are more selective and more options. They have priorities. Are you going to pay the bill? Are you going to pay your rent? Or are you going to pay your mortgage versus buy a pair of shoes? I think the answer is pretty simple there, right?

There's definitely hierarchies into this thing, right? I don't know. It's just, well, economy downturn is also a big factor compared to what we're so used to during COVID. And a very interesting point is how do businesses survive now, right? So I think we're well into the buyer's market now. And I think three years ago, it's like the sellers, basically buyers were begging sellers to sell. And sellers mentality was like, how do I whack this buyer as much as I can, right?

That mindset definitely cannot happen anymore. And the thing is, now buyers are begging sellers, like sellers are begging buyers to buy.

But the thing is two years ago if you try to excuse my language but if you fuck the buyers they're going to remember and they're not going to buy from you now because they just remember how much how bad you whacked them a couple years ago so i think that's kind of the state we're in and like i said like a lot of sellers are struggling and yeah and it's probably going to continue like it's who knows but like i said it's

sneakers are always like cycles right so even for us like we understand times are slow, but we just kind of keep cash and kind of be like, okay, it's slow now, then maybe it's time to take some time off, go enjoy and spend some time with more with family. And then when it picks up again, that's where we go ham again, right? I want to ask you about that, but I have to ask you about business.

One more business question before we go, because you bought lots of pairs from, from you and I've sent some pairs the other way. Occasionally we'll see that kind of old school net magnetism. Instagram posts. Now, are those coming from your collection? Are they coming from those boxes that you say you forgot in the storage or, and I know you don't want people bothering you to sell pairs or, or do you?

That's not really part of it anymore is it no like like i said things change like we used to be 100 instagram and we're talking about like six seven years ago but i don't know if you remember that one time our account got or i don't know what happened i don't even know how it happened our account just got taken down and then i'm just like that i was freaking out because that's where we did 100% of our business almost and then I'm just like okay that's this is interesting now

what do we do right so I think at that time I started to kind of be like okay we need to figure out to diversify like if we don't have Instagram what are we going to do and that's kind of how we went through different routes and kind of diversify ourself as a business because money's going to keep coming in right so but back to your point is when we list on Instagram we have very very specific niche but really it's like very similar to what curated band is doing right

now like they're very niche pairs where you typically don't find but the thing is i try to move away from this market because it's just i see business a very different way now like you know to me it's more like more volume less margin.

And then people are happy people could come back and i think that's the kind of business you want to deal with like we're talking about like back then instagram we're probably like selling, one or two pairs a night but now we're talking about some 50 60 pairs a day so that's kind of the business we moved on to so i mean yeah so that's kind of where we're on like but back to in terms of the shoes we're posting like the like the rare like wheat forms or the tiffany sbs we have i stashed

like when i see something good in terms of price i'll buy it like people come to me and be like do you want to buy it these shoes they give us give me a list and i'm like okay yeah i like it and i'll buy it but i sometimes don't even touch that list for months like because i i know they're good shoes so i'm just like i don't have time to touch it so i just leave it there and they're still in boxes and then that's where i open some boxes when i have some free time and.

Be like oh shit i have these anyone want it but i'm more of the mindset of like if no one wants it that's cool too because like i said it's just i don't mind keeping them because they're they're good shoes of course some shoes don't work in my favor because the market has definitely dropped but that's just like i'm not really making money on that aspect i just like to keep some of those good shoe because of what we used to like back to our origin origin story where that's

where we first started yeah when you're thinking of what pairs to buy maybe in larger quantities we're talking for you know the the newer business not that old one how much of it is just looking at the market and numbers and how much of it is you know feel because like back then you had to judge you had to say hey jordan these these 85s are going to be worth something one day but now it's a different whole different equation right and so do you go by like what you see in the mall or,

what you're feeling or even what you because because i remember when jordan ones really took off after the last dance and everyone was buying vintage and 85s i was getting a little tired of them by that point and i had some old ones and i said you know i wasn't as into them so i sold a bunch of vintage pairs and i made a lot of money and it was good some of them i bought from you.

And it was kind of like you know it was a little bit of playing the market but it was more like i was feeling what was happening so do you do you do any of that or is it sort of like i'm looking at the numbers i've got my i got my bay street mind working yeah it's uh it's i look at it very differently like back then. We're talking about that format where it's like, all right, this guy's selling it to me for 500. What's the market? What are people selling it? And is there a margin for me to make?

That's what we used to do. But that's just too much work. You can't possibly do math on that for a thousand pairs of shoes. So obviously for us, it's like we buy a pool of shoes.

Like we're talking about like not like very expensive shoes like like very grs like we buy a6 we buy new balance we buy 90 jordans and like i said it's more of a numbers game of all right out of this 1000 pairs how many pairs can i break even how many pairs like we just do a quick eyeball and be like all right this pair i can sell at retail this pair i can't all right so 20% we can make money, 40% we could probably make money and then say the next 20% is if we can't make

money but how much money are we making on the 20% and then kind of like do an equation like not even equation it's just ballpark ballpark number and it's like okay out of a thousand if we can make 10% 15% margin, and this is the dollar value we're good.

That's how you can do it for like talking about thousand pairs of shoes all right so you can't go through every single skew and be like what's the market at and how much can i make you you probably by the time you've done that list i probably would have gotten like i probably would have sold like 20 30 of the shoes already so it's like we just kind of like look at what are your value skews what are like like it's actually pretty pretty crazy because.

I posted this on my instagram a few times some of these skus are crazy it's like you've never like air max bw gr sports red sells for 300 us right no one would have thought that right like that was a shoe where people just ignore and we're talking about you can get it and say retail was, 150 us i can probably get it at like say maybe like 60 70 percent of the retail price so if you're asking me i would buy many of those as i could but no one would

know right like but that's kind of the patience game and some of the basics people are paying 225 us for it and i'm just like i bought it for 100 bucks right so that's where we're talking about i just need to i just need a couple of winners and then look at the whole formula and be like a thousand pairs, all right, we're good. So it's not like we're kind of like, oh, UNC, is it going to take off next year kind of thing?

That's already too far out. We're talking about how can I sell these thousand pairs of shoes by next month, right? Cool. I'll lay off the business. I know that listeners and I do appreciate your expertise and insights into the business of sneakers. But before I let you go, since this is a sneaker dad's takeover, I have to ask, what's the little guy running around in?

Do you have him? Are you, are you the, is he in the cause fit with the, with the, with the, with the Jordan ones or is he in some Velcros?

What do you got him in? let's just put it this way before you have kids you have this idea of my my kid gonna be as fly as possible the best releases and all that jazz right so now it's more like no let's just get something simple so we went with the new gown velcro yeah i i even avoided jordans because i never really thought about it until he became a dad like how do you expect to put laces on a two year old when like say a jordan toddler with

jordan laces on it i'm like this is the dumbest idea possible like i can't even fit the shoe in him like i need new balance velcro that is the easiest you posted that you were looking for did you find some i did i did i bought it in asia it's crazy because they don't have it they don't have too many selections here in north america but, yeah but back to my point is it's like i i saved up some baby jordans i didn't even touch a pair because there's no way i'm fighting my kid to put on that

shoe and like like i said we all go through that phase where it's like oh we're gonna buy shoes for our kids and this is what they're gonna wear and it's a total different story when you actually face them in real life because you just need something that they can put on. Easy. Yeah. Birthday party, you drag them to sneaker, confine, they'll wear them for an hour. They'll be off in the car. Just for sure.

If you can even get them on the feet. The physical part of getting them on the feet is actually the biggest problem. It's not even, I mean, growing will be a problem. They'll grow out of stuff. My son's not interested in my stuff. You know, he's my size. I think I said this, he's my size. And I said, you can basically have everything, anything you want. He was like, give me those 85s because he thinks he's going to sell them.

Like, who are you going to sell them to you nobody who has money yeah exactly so no but everything else and he's like i'll take the fours took a pair of fours and a pair of air max he doesn't want anything else so i'm heartbroken i got all these pairs so there there it is there's no one else who's gonna take them so yeah i think i think you you have the right idea but uh you know you see what happens as they grow you know maybe slow down the growth that's the

window there's there's a window where they slow down the growth and you can you can buy them a pair but pretty much no pretty much there's there's no reason we buy them shoes like every six months almost so yeah and those new balances are gray of course right yeah new balance i mean uh i'm just joking i was joking the gray yeah but it is that there's only one color yeah those belcrans those are those are those are those are great shoes yeah.

They're winners all right donk thank you so much for doing this i know again the in kiss free trust listeners will love this they uh they give an opportunity for shout outs so you got any shout outs you got anyone uh give you are you on are you supposed to be working now or is this an extra hour out of your family life i'm telling you to shout out i'm telling you to shout out your wife oh yeah well definitely the wife because definitely because like i'm when

i'm working definitely the wife has to take care of the kid right so but yeah of course yeah that's why. It's good i mean it's without her it won't be me so okay we'll leave it at that no more shout outs all right i'll shout out you for being a great guest again giving us your time you've given me your time a lot of times on the podcast and elsewhere. So I always appreciate it. And yeah, all the listeners and of course the InKicks We Trust crew, I got to see a few of them.

I glisslemania the other day, not everyone was there, but it was good to see them. And, you know, it's always a good event. So you should, uh, you should make it there next year and, you know, give you an opportunity to wear something other than your, uh, your new balance. Probably would still show up in new balance. Not with that crowd.

But uh donk thank you i hope you hope you get out on the uh links a lot this spring summer i know time is tough but uh hope you place get a chance to play some golf too thanks all right thanks for having me and yeah we'll talk soon cool thanks yeah.