Housakicks covers a variety of topics i.e quick sneaker reviews, release reports & projection articles to help the reader in their buying decision. Picture: Housakicks
After writing my post on sneaker raffles, I was reminded that there are sites available to assist the Everyday Sneakerhead missing out on a lot of sneaker releases:
The Digital Sneaker Raffle is a Necessity In a Sneaker Culture Devoid of Discovery
I was hesitant to look into these sneaker sites because I’ve witnessed a lot of the conflict and confrontation taking place in the sneaker community around who is building groups and why they are building groups. I decided to write this post after a dialogue I had about raffles and whether sites selling subscriptions are really for the culture. I have a subscription area on this site, but it’s for data on resale and for the time spent writing the site. It’s basically a thank you. These three sites I’m going to discuss, offer services. This is my research and discussion. It isn’t by any means a thorough, deep dive, but a quick look at newer sites that have seemingly avoided any negative commentary. Let’s get into it…
Sneaker communities have long defined the subculture. From Nike Talk, message boards, and comment sections on websites, to Discord groups, Reddit boards, and now Twitter Spaces, forming communities allows for the social aspect of relationship building to benefit individuals and eventually brands and retailers. The relationships born organically often are the most beneficial, but the eventual encroachment by outside influences can contribute to the degradation of even the strongest groups.
The commoditization of these niche groups often happens publicly creating factions competing for the eyes and ears of the people who actively participate in the communities. Although turning relationships into for-profit businesses might be seen as negative, it can grow into events, conferences, shows and opportunities; but nothing beats the simplicity of offering “oops”, a catch phrase based on the assist from the ball handler to another player for a bucket, to peers in these online spaces.
When structure is given to a community, it can contribute to discord, or it can become the wire carrying enough voltage to light up Times Square, allowing for the infiltration of ad dollars, misinformation, or it can generate solidarity and shape the subculture connected. Consider the Reddit thread that shook Wall Street to its core and changed how hedge funds organize and operate. A person or group smart enough to understand the people frustrated with a segment of business and culture can build a business and monetize community.
The interesting aspect is community is always eventually monetized. Which leads to the analysis of sneaker consumers and sites who saw a need and filled that space. I helped build a site, Housakicks, which operates on a small scale. After helping to shape how the site was set up and the content creation, I stepped away. The founder has created a combination of informative articles both gated and free. It hasn’t grown very much, but that’s a matter of structure. It’s a sole proprietorship vs companies like Sole Retriever and Tradeblock.
I choose these three sites, not because they are better than Twitter Spaces and Discord groups, but because I’ve been able to see the growth of Sole Retriever and Housakicks who, like older platforms like Sole Links, have never seemed to be appropriators of the culture. They operate with an honest approach. Sole Retriever operates in the hype space, and they utilize an extremely clean website and app format. Housakicks, is now like an old school sneaker blog with a variety of content on acquiring kicks, making sure your sneakers aren’t fake and what I’ve noticed is the content Housakicks created is now being co-opted by bigger YouTubers and Sneaker Sites. Prior to Housakicks, no site was attempting to place an actual formula to the number of shoes released or using mathematical equations for resale. TradeBlock is often touted as the most user-friendly app for locating and trading hard to find kicks.
Taking the time to search and browse Twitter threads, there aren’t any negative messages out there about the companies. Both the bigger sites Tradeblock and Sole Retriever, operate in completely different ways. Those two sites respectively offer community the ability to trade kicks they have on hand, and supply community with an aggregation of information on release dates and restocks. Housakicks isn’t as active and is much smaller, so the info isn’t readily available, but the amount of content from the site captures both aspects of the bigger sites, it only falls short in applying a religious philosophy to sneakers. It’s an interesting compare and contrast topic: How does a sole proprietorship operate compared to LLCs and companies that have more financial backing? There is also another topic: Can a sneaker site built to generate profit do so without abusing the culture? It seems these three sites have done so, but they are relatively small. I hope they keep doing good work because the raffle system is creating a lot of issues including one I failed to cover in my original article. People who are lucky enough to run across an in-demand sneaker will grab any sizes remaining. They will use the pick-up to barter and trade for what they want. This happened prior to raffles but is now a prominent aspect in why there are more resellers now than in the past.
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