With news of stock markets across the world suffering record losses, a possible silver lining for investors (and sneakerheads) comes in the form of a new site that tracks the real-time prices of footwear.
StockX bills itself officially as a “stock market of things” but so far only lists sneakers. On the site it tracks the real time prices of some of the most popular shoes on the Web using metadata dragged in from sites like eBay.
It has even gone so far as to create separate indexes, to track the prices of Nike Air Jordans (down 5.2 percent), Nike more generally (up 32 percent) and EON, a catch-all term for all other brands (up 8.2 percent).
There’s also a speculative futures market or ‘initial sneaker offering’ (a tongue-in-cheek take on initial public offering (IPO). the term given to companies who want to join a stock market) based on shoes that are yet to be released.
StockX is designed to act as a middleman between buyers and sellers on the site. When a purchase is completed, the footwear is sent to the company’s offices in Detroit where it’s authenticated and shipped to the new owner.
The global sneaker market is estimated to be worth more than $25 billion a year, with the resale market worth as much as $6 billion according to StockX founder Josh Luber.
However, the world of footwear trading may already have its very own Gordon Gecko in the form of Kanye West. With the announcement of the rapper/fashion person’s new season of clothing and accessories this week, his Yeezy line of shoes have been selling for 10 times their retail value.
Quartz has even gone so far as to proclaim West the ‘new gold’ as the resale value of a pair of Yeezy’s is offering a better rate of return than investing in gold.
It seems footwear could be this year’s smartest investment.
➤ StockX is an online stock market for sneakers [Highsnobiety]
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