Nike is BANNING Resellers.

image: qz.com

Yesterday morning Nike released some news that has every reseller and bot user collectively shaking in their boots. Nike announced that as a company they are going to be BANNING reselling and they will begin cracking down on resellers using their (Nike’s) apps and websites with a goal to get as many sneakers to “end costumers” as possible, meaning that they are focused on getting product into the hands of people who plan to hold onto the product for themselves. I will break down Nikes release in point form to clean it all up because I took the time to read through it so you don’t have to (please do not congratulate me on being a man of the people).

- Nike is reserving the right to cancel any and all orders that they believe to be going to known resellers.

- Nike will cancel all orders made by automated software's used to order shoes on their apps and websites.

- Nike will begin charging restocking fee’s on returns.

- Nike will be banning accounts that they deem are reselling product.

- Nike reserves the right to give no refund on returned product in certain circumstances.

Let’s break down all of this info. To start Nike plans to cancel orders that they deem to be going to resellers or are purchased using automated services like bots, how this is determined is unclear as of now but here is my idea. Personally I believe that Nike is going to begin using software that is able to detect accounts trends, check out speeds and look for IP address’s with a higher than normal number of entries, then make their decision from there. Nike also plans to charge a restocking fee on returned product and they may also not be giving refunds on certain returns in regards to sneakers. The reason behind the fee and the possibility of not receiving a refund on a persons returned product is simple. Many resellers will buy sneakers that they plan to hold onto for a period of time and hope that the price on the secondary market increases as time goes on, if the sneakers that they had bought do not end up increasing in price the resellers then will return the product (still dead stocked) to Nike and expect a full refund that way there is no risk to the reseller trying to play the market. Now if Nike believes you had the intent to resell these sneakers they have reserved the right to completely deny a refund on the product, this along with the fee the customer will pay for restocking will deter resellers buying every single sneaker they can get they hands on.

These changes are obviously never going to completely end people buying and reselling sneakers but I believe it is a step in the right direction for Nike as their public perception over the last few years by the non resellers is that Nike does not care about the end customers and only cared about selling out their sneakers, so if a reseller and their bot army wanted to buy every pair it was good for Nikes bottom line. As someone who doesn't really resell sneakers I love Nikes new initiative however, do I trust Nike to follow through on this? Not completely, but I do like that Nike seems to be trying at least. Let me know on Instagram (@thesneakerciamp) if you believe in Nike and what they’re doing or if you think this may just be a big show to build up consumers trust in the brand again.