Let’s be honest, for Nike to really become a sustainable company they would have to eliminate 75% of their SKUs. They would still have far too much product entering the market to be considered more eco-friendly. The latest rollout in their Move To Zero is a program they’ve labeled as Nike Refurbished. In my opinion, the Resku website and concept, which hit 700,000 visits a month at one point in the last year and is still at 500K now, was the test run for this concept. I’ve seen Nike returns move from location to location here in Memphis. A return at the Nike Employee Store finds its way to the Nike Clearance Store. I’ve also seen shoes at the Nike Factory Store shift to the Nike Clearance Store. Nike has an elegant brick and mortar eco-system that allows them to adjust pricepoints and shift product to the appropriate demographic.
Nike Refurbished is pulling a page directly from sneaker culture. For the longest on eBay and on trade sites like Sneaker Con, sellers used a system of DS, NDS, VNDS (Deadstock, Nearly Deadstock and Very Nearly Deadstock) to sell shoe collections to each other. This is an instance that seems as if it could disrupt third party resale, but in actuality it could strengthen it bringing the sale of returned, gently worn to a larger consumer base. While stores like Plato’s Closet and of course the abundance of eBay channels selling vintage gear are exploding, Nike has found a way to simply advertise what they were already doing… which enhances the perception of the brand, but as I said at the start of this post, doesn’t really move the needle very much for sustainability.
Watch How Nike Refurbished Works:
https://news.nike.com/news/nike-refurbished-circularity-model
Nike Refurbished:
https://www.nike.com/sustainability/nike-refurbished
The Sustainability Report: Ep. 2 | Resku & Extending the Sharing Economy in the Sneaker Industry (Video and Post):
5 Things StockX Should Fix (Includes Video – without audio of Bulk Shipping Glitch) – Running Update on Returns:
RESKU:
https://resku.co/
