This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Today's a good day to talk about selling sneakers. Sneaker reselling. It's fun to talk about selling sneakers, right? We actually have a MBA student here on the podcast asking a question. MBA student who has a serious love for fashion.
He's been a long time listener, his name's Michael. He thinks he's found the perfect side of us all reselling sneakers. And we've actually had a number of case studies of sneaker resellers. It's an interesting market. It's grown exponentially in the past few years.
It has some unique dynamics. You really need to understand the collector mindset. There's some technology, different platforms, a lot of competition as well, but also a pretty big user base. So that's what we do here on Side Hustle School. We look at opportunities, try to give you some tips, some practical tips that you can use right away, whether it's sneaker reselling or something else you want to go into.
Let's talk about Michael. Does he have what it takes to put his best foot forward? His question's coming up after the quick message on behalf of our sponsor. Thanks sponsors and thank you listeners. [Music]
I'm Michael Rasmussen, long time listener.
As an MBA student and a sneaker head, I've been looking to combine my love for sneakers with my education. Your podcast has been a valuable source of inspiration, particularly when it comes to identifying profitable side hustles, reselling sneakers, sparked my interest as it aligns with my passion and I believe my business knowledge could be an asset, but I'm not sure about the initial steps. What would you do if you were me? [Music]
All right, Michael, this is exciting. I love it.
As an MBA student, you've already got a bit of a foundation for approaching this as a business. You probably learned some things about supply and demand, market research, customer segmentation. You know, these are all things that are important in the world of sneaker reselling and I like to simplify things a lot because often people get overwhelmed and people who don't come from an entrepreneurship background, they're like, well, what does that mean? Market research, customer segmentation, these are big words, but really we're just talking about how do you find a market of people who are interested in buying what you hope to offer for sale, right? Like a product or a service.
In this case, you wanna buy sneakers, resell them. As Michael and lots of people know, that's a huge active market these days. So let's see, what's Michael wanting to know here about the initial steps? Okay, what would I do if I were him? Well, I would start by making sure I was really up to date with the latest trends and releases in the sneaker world.
This is something that actually changes pretty quickly. You know, so staying active on social media, following some sneaker influencers, subscribing to newsletters, magazines, there's some apps, a couple of different platforms specifically related to sneakers. Like I said, it's a big ecosystem these days. You'll wanna be aware of release dates for new models and limited editions. Those are often the most lucrative to resell.
And then next, you wanna really kind of define your market a little bit better. Like, are you targeting collectors, people who just want the brand new shoe, don't care what size it is even, they just wanna put it up on a wall or something, or are you actually targeting people who are gonna wear these sneakers? And where are they? Like, are these people local to you? Are they connected through different networks around the country?
Are they international? Just knowing your target audience is gonna help you curate your collection effectively. Because at a certain point, you are gonna need to spend some money on inventory, right? You wanna make sure you're managing your inventory effectively, turning it over, so that you're not just like keeping a bunch of sneakers, you know, for weeks or months, you know, on and on without selling them. Because unless you have unlimited money, which I'm sure you don't, you can't just do that.
Like you wanna make a small investment in initial inventory, but then you want to turn that over. And then of course, you also wanna decide on your sales platform. So there's a bunch of those for sneaker reselling. They tend to be different from places like eBay. One is called StockX, one is called Goat, probably some others that I'm not familiar with, but that's what you gotta do in your research process.
And I would encourage you to try to get to your first sale as quickly as possible, just because that tends to be really motivating. So do that research, but don't wait too long. I think within 30 days, you can be having sales and learning as you go without spending a lot of money. So Michael, I'm wishing you the best. Time to hit the ground running, get that side hustle off on the right foot.
And listeners, if you have a question or some comments or feedback, anything else, sidehustleschool.com/questions. So glad you're out there. You can always listen. It's completely free wherever you get your podcasts, or you can access the entire archive, 2,411 episodes on sidehustleschool.com. Of course, I'll be back again tomorrow with a new episode.
We're gonna talk about a different kind of e-commerce tomorrow. We actually have a success story. Excited to share that with you. And that's all for now. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
You're listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
