I have to give a shout out to my guy Tayib at Housakicks.com who brought Nikes and Jordans on Wal-Mart to my attention a couple of months ago. I had been approached by Wal-Mart in 2015 as part of a beta-test for a Seller Central styled marketplace for Wal-Mart. A few months ago, actually it may have been last year, Tayib asked me if the Jordans on Wal-Mart were fake. I said, “about as fake as anything on Amazon or eBay.” Then I had to explain that fakes became a major issue on Amazon once they removed the stringent approval process of opening a Seller Central account. This didn’t get to the heart of Tayib’s question on why Wal-Mart was carrying Retros. I explained to him that online retail there has a battle going on. The battle is between Wal-Mart/eBay/Amazon and Target. Wal-Mart is no longer growing and according to the following report, Wal-Mart is in the process of closing over 200 stores. Target is in bigger trouble because it attempted to enter the grocery game (which is a lose-lose situation). http://www.investors.com/research/industry-snapshot/online-retailers-vs-brick-and-mortar-stores-whos-winning/
I know you’re ready to get to why there are now Jordans on Wal-Mart. I’m getting there.
Amazon continues to grow. Wal-Mart however did a very poor job of building its e-commerce and recently bought Jet.com. The Jet purchase is a big deal, that isn’t going to work, but that’s another story and it’s not sneaker related. Here is an article discussing that purchase. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-08/wal-mart-agrees-to-buy-jet-com-for-3-billion-to-fight-amazon
Here is a link to the Jordans on Wal-Mart: https://marketplace.walmart.com/ When you click this link if you are reseller you can sign up for Wal-Mart’s Marketplace. Just like on eBay you can sell any item you want. When Wal-Mart began building this third-party, they pursued the larger accounts on Seller Central. As I said, I was invited in the initial wave, but setting up the store took a considerable amount of time and after leaving sneakers on the site for a month, I stopped making an effort to sell there. People aren’t really looking for Retros or premium product on Wal-Mart, so the strategy was flawed.
http://www.walmart.com/c/brand/jordan This link takes you to Jordan on Wal-Mart. However, if you take the time to go to Men’s shoes you will notice that Nike, Adidas, Under Armour and a ton of other brands are there as well. Although there aren’t any popular adidas shoes on the page… or Under Armour, which is another story and reflects how new the service is.
Are Jordans on Wal-Mart a symbol of Nike’s demise? No. Nike is struggling after rolling a series of poor options to sneaker culture, and ad they’ve been closing small accounts, but the Jordans on Wal-Mart are a reflection of the platform attempting to mimic Amazon Seller Central. This is evidence of Wal-Mart’s struggle against Amazon. Nike on Wal-Mart is just like shoes on eBay, Amazon or any other platform where people can resell.
Do I think Wal-Mart will be successful in its foray into the marketplace world of eBay and Amazon, even with the purchase of Jet? Hell no. Carry on…
