Has Sneaker Hype Gone Too Far?

It may seem odd coming from us, but, with the triple effect of an aggressive and unpleasant convention, Nike’s SNKRS app crashing under the weight of “THE TEN” release, and Sean Wotherspoon’s Air Max 97/1 release being canceled, there’s clearly something wrong with the world of sneakers at the moment. And a lot of that comes down to one question: why is it so hard to buy a pair? The shift towards raffles was originally designed for altruistic purposes. Back in 2015, Nike debuted NikePlus – purposely designed to combat the rise of bots. Now, two years later, launch issues are still regularly causing problems. This time around it started with the brand offering an online draw, which was then canceled, with Nike releasing a statement referring to technical issues “caused by overwhelming demand,” announcing its plans to instead launch its shoes via the SNKRS app. But, despite its positives, the app crashed under the weight of demand, leaving Nike to issue yet another statement – citing the “unprecedented level of demand,” which saw the shoes sell out in minutes. We spoke to Paul Ruffles, creative and brand strategist, who explained that the main issue here is simple and fixable. “The demand created by all the marketing hugely outweighed the number of pairs created. Nike could’ve produced 1000’s of more pairs and no one would’ve been the wiser and more consumers would have been happy.” Read more at Hypebeast.