The brands, clubs, and athletes keep pushing their limited edition sneakers to the fans and collectors. The fans–who couldn’t get their hands on their favorite sneaker–pay any price to get that from whomever possible. If you understand sneakers and can market yourself, these additional 7 life skills will help you go beyond.
Who Are Sneakerheads?
You are identified as a sneakerhead in your community if you have extensive knowledge about sneakers, have a collection, or sell sneakers as a hobby. As collectible sneakers are limited and their price can reach manifolds in the market, you need specific life skills to support your hobby and business.
- Sneaker Research Skills
This goes without saying that you need extensive research skills to find the right sneakers for yourself and your buyers. You need to keep following the top athletes and teams to track their latest collections.
Platforms like Discord and YouTube can also be major sources of information for sneakers. Here are top sources that you can follow to get the latest and greatest information about the sneakers that your buyers will love:
Online News Portals
Online news portals like Sneaker News and Sole Collector are legit sources of the latest news. If you are a sneakerhead, following their feeds and preparing yourself to cop the latest sneakers is the first thing you need to do.
As they usually announce the upcoming sneaker sales beforehand, you can prepare yourself to snatch the deals before the stores run dry. But as these sources are quite mainstream and most new sneakerheads follow the threads, the competition for the listed sneakers can go quite high.
Discord
Discord is a social media alternative that lets you communicate within closed groups to gather and distribute information among interested individuals. The bots of Discord scavenge the internet to post the latest information about the sneakers that are soon to be on sale.
In addition to information gathering, you can also collaborate with other sneakerheads to increase your chances of copping sneakers in the next sale cycle through Discord.
The popular Discord channels among sneakerheads are:
- Sneakers
- Sole Patrol
- StreetHeat
- Flip Kicks
- SneakerFR
- AnoniFied
Social Media and Brand Websites
Most brands like Nike and New Balance post their sneaker release details in addition to the release date and price on their websites and social media. Bookmark the top brands that you are interested in and get sneaker information from their social media portals before everyone else.
- Tech Skills
As a new sneakerhead, you’d often notice stores drying out even before you can book your first pair. This is because the sneaker pros are using something called sneaker bot and sneaker proxies. But don’t just skim through Google and download the first bot you stumble upon. Without a sneaker proxy, you might get banned from the website forever for using a bot.
Sneaker Bots
Sneaker bots are automated programs that do the sneaker copping for you. As these bots are manifolds faster than human reflexes, they secure the best pairs for you without you needing to lift a finger. The best sneaker bots send thousands of requests in a minute to the sneaker servers to block other users from accessing the website and secure a passage for your request.
Sneaker Proxies
Sneaker proxies ensure that the bots don’t get detected. If you don’t use a sneaker proxy, the websites can track that the bots are originating from the same IP address and can block your access to the website forever.
Sneaker proxies channel the bot requests from different origin IP addresses to keep them from being detected.
- Communication Skills
Copping the sneaker isn’t the only objective. You need to sell them too. For that, communication skills are equally important. Extracting information from your competitors, securing customers, and keeping them close calls for good communication skills.
Even if it’s not illegal to cop sneakers, your business isn’t a registered one and you can’t go around announcing that to the world. Keeping that information masked and sustaining your sneaker dealings is a necessity. Thus, you need good communication skills to keep your deals as discreet as possible.
- Marketing Skills
There are hundreds of sneakerheads that you are icompeting with. Although limited edition sneakers are scarce, you need to market your legitimacy to interested parties. Counterfeit products flood the market once a sneaker is announced. And without gaining the trust of your customers, they won’t be buying from you.
Marketing skills like social media marketing and email marketing are exceptionally effective for sneaker businesses. You need to reach the sneakerhead niche and make your brand known in the sneaker scene.
- Business Skills
Sustaining a business is not only about selling your product and making a handsome profit. You have to pay for your efforts and time too. And if you have scaled a bit, you might need employees on your payroll, too. Managing them, defining their roles, and making them work for you are challenging, but can prove to be rewarding once you’ve got the hang of it.
- Data Analysis Skills
Sneaker prices peak and dip in no time. You need to be aware of the past price changes and keep your prices parallel with the market demand. Data analysis doesn’t need to be too complex. You can just go through the sources and analyze the demand for a particular sneaker and place your bets according to that.
A simple data analysis will open up new roads for promoting the products, engaging with clients, and managing your business. If you’ve recently stumbled upon some roadblocks and couldn’t secure as many sneakers, data analysis can expose the parameters that you need to improve.
- Negotiation Skills
You’ve successfully secured your sneakers, marketed yourself, and have talked with interested prospects. Now you need to fix the prices. Note that your buyers might also be talking with your competitors. Thus, you need to improve your negotiation skills to seal the deal and also be profitable.
The Bottom Line
Life and business skills are necessary if you want to take your sneaker hobby to the next level. Research and tech skills are essential to cop the sneakers. Communication and marketing skills are required to promote your business. Lastly, data analysis and negotiation skills are critical for securing the deals.
Iskra Banović is our seasoned Editor-in-Chief at BlueFashion. She has been steering the website's content and editorial direction since 2013. With a rich background in fashion design, Iskra's expertise spans across fashion, interior design, beauty, lifestyle, travel, and culture.
