“One to rock, one to stock”, right?
The short answer to this question is that it depends on the sneaker, and only if you know you’re not going to wear these shoes ever. More than likely, if it’s a hot sneaker, you’re going to sell these shoes in the future. Or, maybe not. You might just keep them on ice just because.
There’s potential money in keeping your sneakers deadstock. We all know that. If you do your research on a particular pair of sneakers and see that the resell value will be a pretty penny, keeping those sneakers on ice is a great option, whether in the short or long term. Of course, the longer you keep them shelved, there’s always a possibility of dips in value, or that it may just plateau and not really increase or decrease after a certain point. So, from a resell point of view, you kinda have to play it like stocks: buy low, sell high. If the sneaker doesn’t do so well on the resell market, you may as well wear the sneakers, because selling them will only have you break even or make a marginal profit, at best. And, you might just fall in love with the sneakers after all. If they’re doing well at resell, and have potential to do better, sit and wait. If they’re red hot and you don’t think they’ll do any better than what they’re currently reselling for (ie, there’s a restock on the way, or initial hype is dying down), sell, sell, sell.
Some people keep sneakers on ice out of hesitancy or other reasons really known to them and only them. It’s no secret that I absolutely love the Be@rbrick dunks. I had to have these sneakers. I was signing up for every raffle and draw I could find them on. I planned on rocking them as the day is long the moment I got them. I don’t plan on getting rid of them unless I absolutely have to. And that’s where the hesitance part of deadstocking comes in. Some people wait weeks, months, and even years before they finally don a pair of kicks. Maybe we want to rock the sneakers, but maybe they’ll shoot up in value in the future so we just wait. Perhaps we really want to wear them, but should we fall on hard times, we want to get all the money we can, so keeping them shelved is the best way to do that if we have to get rid of them. You wouldn’t believe how long it takes for me to finally wear some of my sneakers that I have in my rotation.
Why do I wait so long? Well, it depends. First, I think about the sneaker. If it’s a dope sneaker, sometimes I want to wait and see if value will shoot up. Many times they don’t, they just plateau. Then, I also think about if I might have to sell them in the future. There was one point in time where I got let go from a job and before my unemployment came in, I had to sell some things so I can have a little liquidity in my bank account. Many of the sneakers I sold weren’t deadstock, so I got a fraction of what I could’ve gotten on the resale markets. Safe to say that experience “traumatized” me a bit. That’s a story for another day, though. So, for me, when it comes to a lot of my best sneakers, I keep them shelved as sort of a rainy day fund. With other sneakers, I’m either lazy, or the weather isn’t conducive to the materials, or I’m just not ready to break them out yet. There was a point in time where I had more sneakers I was actively wearing than not. Now, out of the pairs I own, more than half haven’t even seen an inch of floor, ground, or earth. And that’s a conservative estimate.
One last thing: If we know we’re likely going to sell the sneakers at some point, but want to wear them at least once, then all we’ve really done is deprive ourselves of enjoying our shoes for however long we did, since we weren’t going to deadstock the shoes anyway. And to that I’ll tell you to get your wears in early, clean them up, and then box it up for the sale to come later on down the line.
So, what shoes are deadstocked for you? And why?
*Remember that once you put on a pair of fresh, new shoes, they are no longer deadstock. Deadstock means that they have never been worn before.
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