Dive Brief:
- Asics continued to dominate sales on resale platform StockX, growing 589% year over year in the first seven months of 2024, according to a Thursday report.
- In its State of Resale mini market analysis, StockX said Adidas was up 88% year over year, and Yeezy rose 23%. Demand for Ye’s sometimes controversial footwear brand “depicts the complexities of shopper behavior, where virtue signaling falls to the wayside, in favor of cultural clout,” StockX said in a press release.
- Resale demand for mainstream brands appeared to slow, StockX reported. Nike dropped 11% year over year, while Jordan was down 12% for the period.
Dive Insight:
While the 2022 release of the popular JJJJound x Asics Gel-Kayano 14 collaboration may have helped push Asics from dad shoe to most-wanted, the brand appears to have staying power in the resale market.
StockX said in a report released earlier in August that although much of Asics’ success can be attributed to reimagined versions of its classic Gel-1130 and Gel-Kayano 14 styles, two more recent releases, the Gel-NYC and GT-2160, were also contributing to the brand’s continued popularity.
“Shifting consumer preferences and purchasing power coupled with dramatic changes in the brand landscape are driving substantial market shifts in the marketplace,” StockX CEO Scott Cutler said in the release. “The inspiration and innovation coming out of many challenger brands is changing market share and preference from the traditional leaders in the resale marketplace, creating exciting opportunities for consumers. Brands that are creating culturally relevant collections backed by innovation will lead in this environment.”
Brands are no longer able to depend on a single silhouette to drive consumer demand, said StockX in the release. In particular, the formerly popular Nike Dunk has seen a 41% decline in year-over-year trades on the platform, while “cornerstone silhouettes” from brands, including the Jordan 1 and the New Balance 550 have seen average price drops of 18% and 25%, respectively.
Meanwhile, celebrity-fronted shoes from NBA athletes Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Kevin Durant helped drive Nike Performance Basketball footwear up 46% year over year, per the report. The Kobe Protro saw a 512% trade increase, while Devin Booker's Book 1 shoe garnered more than 14,000 trades to date this year, and saw an 18% price increase. WNBA athlete Sabrina Ionescu’s signature Sabrina 1 sneaker, which launched last year, had more than 3,000 new trades in the year to date, “garnering new attention relative to launch,” per StockX.
Shifts in streetwear also impacted some of the sector’s legacy labels, including Supreme, which saw a 3% year-over-year decline in brand movement, and BAPE, which dropped 7% for the period. By contrast, Fear of God, the streetwear label by designer Jerry Lorenzo, rose 18% year over year.
StockX is an online trading marketplace for footwear, apparel, collectibles, handbags and accessories, and its apparel category has grown from 117 brands in 2020 to 249 brands as of the report date, per the company.
