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So, in an attempt to recapture my youth, I recently bought a pair of 'old school' looking trainers, in this case some Nike SB Dunk Lows. They didn't fit, and the retailer didn't have any more pairs in, so I did a bit of looking online for similar shoes, and realised the Jordan 1s were the same sort of thing and had larger and half-sizes available. Or so I thought.
Anyway, looking on the Nike webpage it seems that if you want any colour other than basic all black or all white, you need to sign up to their app and join a 'queue'. To buy a pair of trainers?
Also, appearing bizarrely on my Linkedin feed (?!) there was also Adidas doing a "collab" (sigh) with Lego - https://www.adidas.co.uk/article/FZ3482.html - and again, if you want them, you have to sign up to the 'app'.
I know I'm old, but what's all this about then? I get the 'sneaker collecting' crowd and the limited and rare editions (or, rather, I don't get it, but I understand it happens!), but just mass-market trainers having supply artificially limited just seems weird to me.
Major retailers like Nike are working on direct to market strategies to cut out the middleman (i.e. the people they sell to at trade) and to keep the extra margins for themselves. They need to get you sucked into to having their app so they can market directly and track you and what you do online and workout how to sell more to you.
As for the 'limited' supply of a mass produced trainer, well people are easily sold on a 'special edition'.
Makes perfect business sense, high margins, can market a mass market item as being exclusive and they know all about their customers.
Surprised its not more common....
Luckily Salomon haven't started doing this yet, I just buy the cheapest model I can find in a sale online whenever I need new trainers.
Wait until you get into the world of the nike app where you have to hunt around the app to find clues and links for the ability to get inline or enter a draw to "win" the right to pay full price for trainers... i mean its that or pay resell prices
Wait until you get into the world of the nike app where you have to hunt around the app to find clues and links for the ability to get inline or enter a draw to “win” the right to pay full price for trainers
Whut? Seriously?
Scarcity bias innit
https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-encyclopedia-of-be/scarcity-heuristic/
Whut? Seriously?
Yep, basically you enter a raffle and the price is the cost of the shoes. If you "win" the shop charges your card and you get said shoes if not you get a refund. In the past nike have done stuff like scratch off an image in the app to reveal a link, basically just trying to gamify it. Most of this stuff is done to limit bots which normally buy up stock for resellers then they sell for a huge profit.