(5/6) The secret to reselling.
So what’s a ‘brick’? I think I first started hearing the term ‘brick’ (in this context) right around the time the Supreme Brick came out…from what I remember, it didn’t have much resale value at the time…maybe double retail. But it’s since grown pretty high…4x or 5x retail. The absurdity of the Supreme Brick is legendary, but I think the resellers definition of a brick derived from the initial backlash against the Supreme Brick. I came to understand the term ‘brick’ essentially meant something that everyone wanted to buy with the sole intention of reselling but the resale value never got high enough to justify putting the initial effort into. ie: Lost opportunity cost. (That brick, man, smh. LOL. I remember seeing a Craigslist or FB Marketplace go viral about a dude who tried to snatch up as many Supreme bricks as possible in order to build a house, but after buying 1800 or so he realized they simply didn’t make enough so he was just trying to unload them).
On first glance, ‘brick’ seems to come with a negative connotation. In basketball, a ‘brick’ was a missed shot, in the New York ‘dunn’ language ‘brick’ meant it was cold as balls outside (lol). And in the resale world a ‘brick’ was something no one wanted. But no one could determine what a brick was until the market sorted itself out. Was this hyped item actually in low supply? Or was the market actually flooded with it? So the first time I heard some random internet person say my collection had a bunch of bricks in it, I kind of took it personally. And then I thought ‘well, I’m never looking for hyped releases, so…they are bricks’. And then I smirked. And I responded with ‘yeah, they are a bunch of bricks.’
Most sneaker bricks are just shoes that didn’t make every single blog or major sneaker media’s headlines the first time around. A ‘brick’ can be a $200 air max. Or a $180 Jordan IV that didn’t get much press. Or a Jordan 1 that resells in the less-than$250 range. There’s nothing wrong with them, they just aren’t selling for absurd prices.
The thing about bricks - you can find just about anything you genuinely want for a semi-reasonable price. Like 10% over retail. Not bad. Gimme bricks all day, actually. I’m not a sneakerhead to make money. I’m a sneakerhead because I like sneakers. So, yeah, I’m not trying to wear and destroy a $1k pair of shoes…I’m trying to wear and destroy a bunch of $100 pairs of shoes. I’m not trying to walk around scared to crease my shoes or get some dirt on them. I’m trying to walk around in my goddam shoes. The few times that I did manage to ‘hit’ on non-bricks, I felt guilty even owning them. Like why would I ruin the resale value of a shoe that I could basically sell and get 10 pairs for? Why wear a thousand dollar shoe when I could wear 10 pairs of $100 shoes? The math just didn’t make sense to me. So I built an aversion to hype shoes.
This guy reached out to me a few weeks ago…he asked me to do a legit check for him. And I get a hundred requests like that a week but don’t always respond quickly (and sometimes not at all because I’ve got my hands full 16+ hours a day). But I guess he was in a hurry because right after he sent the initial message he sent another: ‘if you do it for me I’ll tell you how people get thousands of pairs on releases’.
Sure, I’m game.
He sent me the pics of the shoes and they looked good. My response: ‘Looks good to me'.’
Him: ‘Great’.
Then silence. And more silence.
Me, a half-hour later: ‘So how do people get thousands of pairs on releases’
Him: ‘Divvy, bento, tradeshift go. Divvy is credit, bento is debit funded and tradeshift go is through amex business. U can make a lot of virtual cards, 1 card=1 profile. Jig addy and billing zip. Use aycd if you don’t already.’
The caption on a post he shared with me: ‘Never thought I’d be buying air forces (white on white and black on black lows) for above retail to resell but hey…8,500+ pairs sold in the past week.’
I googled each and every one of those items…and yeah, it all looks legit. And it all looks like a ton of work filling in applications and I have next to no interest in that. I just like shoes. But it was interesting to see that this is what people are doing…these are the loopholes people are finding. I respect the hustle. But that ain’t my grind. Is THIS the secret to reselling? I mean…if that’s what you want to do, be my guest. But I ain’t doin’ that. No thanks.