The sneaker resale market has ballooned into a $6 billion industry over the last decade or two. Multimillion-dollar businesses have sprung up off the back of it, teenagers have out-earned their parents overnight, and big-time investors and businesspeople across the world have started to pay attention to sneakers as a legitimate asset-class product.
It’s all about supply and demand. The hyped-up nature of many models, coupled with limited releases and low availability, has created a perfect storm, whereby the right pair of kicks – the same ones that could have cost as little as $100 at retail – can go for upwards of $100,000.