The amount of shoes being produced is absolutely staggering. In doing a little bit of research for this email, I found a number that just blew my mind. If I were to ask you ‘how many pairs of shoes do you think companies create worldwide every year?’ I would have probably guessed 500m - 1bn pairs. I don’t know anyone who would have guessed that World Footwear estimates that there were 24 BILLION pairs of shoes created in 2018 alone - 24 BILLION pairs of shoes for a planet with a world population of 7.9 BILLION people - that’s basically 3 pairs for every single person in the world. In one year.
There are so many shoes out there that it makes me wonder about where all of these used shoes go. Another quick google - Did you know that it’s possible to buy used shoes by the ton? I’m guessing at 2-3lbs per pair, that’d be about 750 pairs per ton. Around $1250 per ton. So…about $1.50 per pair. Can you imagine the logistical issues with trying to keep 750+ pairs together? What are you supposed to do with 28 tons of shoes that don’t have a mate? Could you imagine sorting through that many mountains of used shoes? My god…
The first time I thought of this…it was framed around my thinking of iPods. If you don’t know what an iPod is - google it. About fifteen years ago, when iPods were the music player of choice (there wasn’t anything streaming and phones weren’t really considered music players), I read some statistics on the iPod that blew my mind. There was something about ‘they’ve made enough iPods to cover the great state of Texas with more than 3 feet of iPods’ or something like that, and if you know anything about the size of Texas, you know that that’s an incredible amount of product. But, visualizations aside, a simple google search shows that Apple sold more than 400 million iPods. That’s an average of more than 1 iPod for each and every single person in the United States. Think about that for a minute…they made so many iPods that they ran out of the natural resources that they were mining at the bottom of the ocean to make them. And the amount of iPods created in total over the course of 10 years is a mere fraction of the amount of shoes created worldwide over the course of a week (at a rate of 66m pairs/day).
So…2004…the year I got my first iPod. That I used 8+ hours a day for 3-4 years (until it crashed). But let’s take a look at some of the sneakers I was also paying attention to in 2004 for example…there were 35 Jordan signature releases, with only 18 of them being retros. 18 retros. Most months saw 1, half of those saw 2 retro releases. 2’s, 4’s, 12’s, 13’s.
Now compare that to the past few years…A short while back, I saw an article that said there were more than 180 Jordan brand retro releases that dropped in 2018. That’s an average of another pair of retros every two days. There’s a ton of variety, which is great for sneakerheads because we LOVE variety. But…nothing seems all that special anymore. Missed out on one? It’s cool, there are another 179 you might be able to get your hands on. Wait another day and they’re droppin something else.
Now…another anecdote…the Jordan XI. Likely one of the most recognizable models in the line - it used to be a pair they’d only release retros of around Christmas time. It was a yearly tradition up until a few years ago. There are currently 900 versions on GOAT. And the numbers…back around Christmas 2013 - the rumor was that they produced 400k pairs of the the Gamma Blue XI’s and still sold out immediately. Last years batch of Bred XI’s that dropped for Christmas was the largest drop in Nike’s history (rumored to be 1m+ units). I recently heard that this years batch of cool grey XI’s are expected to sell more than 1.5 million pairs of these this holiday season!
To be continued…
You played a bit fast and loose with the "iPods caused us to run out of lithium" non-factoid. The article talks about mining for lithium, used to make lithium-ion batteries, which obviously are not unique to iPod or Apple or even portable devices (i.e. electric cars, and house batteries). For every device that Apple manufactures and sells, there are many more times that made and sold by competitors -- so Apple isn't even the largest driver of lithium-ion battery usage.
Please don't write these false equivalencies! It makes you lose credibility. Or worse, it gets quoted and repeated as fact on social media.
The crazy thing is if they do make enough for everyone in the states, no one would want them. Make 500k pars and all of a sudden everyone wants them. That's why Vanessa Bryant ended her contract with Nike, she wanted a shoe mass produced, and Nike was like "Naw".