Why did ‘Clay Brown’ fail?
It's a reality check of Yeezy drops. India being a growing sneaker market has seen a positive response from Adidas. For end consumers, it’s a good thing but for a secondary resale market, that's not. Yeezy line is one of the best Adidas has to offer, with Kanye West on the creative side, the hype is always there. But the vision of Kanye is to get the shoes for the masses, which means more production. For example, currently, every Yeezy drop sees 500,000 + units produced worldwide, which is enough to cater to the buyers. There are always exceptions that do exceptionally well, like 350 ‘Bred’ and ‘Zebra’, they are all-time favorites and no matter how many times they restock, they will sell out and manage to hold resale value.
The following are the reasons I have gathered after discussing with collectors and end-users alike, why the Yeezy line is failing, keeping ‘Clay Brown’ as the point of discussion.
- Earth tone colorway —
“All Yeezy look alike. One undeniable reason why a person purchases a 22000–24000 INR pair is to be recognized for it. That objective is defeated if there are 5 people in a party, wearing lookalike pairs. You can’t go around talking, I bought this for 40 K or below retail. They all look similar”
Yeezys have had a reputation of following Earth tone colorways when it comes to 350 lines. ‘Flax’, ‘Natural’, ‘Earth’ etc., all look similar; one is priced below retail, and the other is crossing 38 K mark. The thing with Jordan is no matter what colorway is, your eye can catch its premium value, a ‘Bred’ colorway will always be expensive because MJ was in Chicago Bulls, its history. Yeezy doesn't have that, no history attach to why Kanye is doing what he is doing.
‘Clay Brown’ has an earth tone colorway too, so even after being very similar to ‘Alvah’ (OG), it's still not selling.
2. Excess Availability —
“I was able to cop 6 pairs of size UK 9, 9.5, 10, 10.5, 11, and 12 for retail. I think I can make a profit of 2 K on each”
Spending 120000 INR to get a profit of 12000 with a hold time of 4-5 months is a no, that's basic reselling. Considering the current market the resale of ‘Clay Brown’ is 16000 INR, so that's a loss of 24000 for the seller.
Yeezy comes in huge quantities, it’s a fact and should be acknowledged by everyone. You can get them for retail or less, keeping aside exceptions. Resellers who have the capacity to hold should consider buying them and not everyone. I have seen many young resellers getting stuck because of their bad investment.
3. Size issue —
“ I am a UK 10 in QNTM, UK 10.5 in 350 and UK11 in 700 V3, it took me 5 fail attempts to get the sizing right”
One should always discuss the sizing of Yeezy before buying them for personal use. Talk to your regular reseller, watch Youtube, etc., the sizing information is everywhere. Most get it wrong the first time. This was seen first with ‘Alvah’ release; people tried on, didn't fit, they sold them. So if you are the end-user of ‘Alvah’, most probably your pair was tried on. It was the first time V3 came to India on large scale, that too during the lockdown.
