Jordan Brand will celebrate its heritage with a series of spring footwear collections that pay homage to the brand’s legacy of pushing style boundaries.
Source: Nike News – Jordan Brand Unveils Select Spring 17 Air Jordan Silhouettes
I was just having a back and forth on Disqus with @blcklistd who said something that I found interesting. It wasn’t ground breaking, but it validated what a lot of people think about the influence of the sneakerhead in kicks.
“Resale is important it does highlight the popularity of the shoe (regardless of scarcity – though that would push the value of the shoe north in the resale market). sneakerheads are the testing ground for new models”
Do I agree with this? Yes, but not for the reason you might think. I operate a resale shop. It is inherently important that resale remain in place or I have to rely solely on this website as a news source and the site hasn’t reached the level of interest that Complex or Hypebeast has. In the short term I agree that resale is important.
However the comment is wrong about sneakerheads being the proving grounds. Athletes are the proving grounds. Performance drives casual, not the reverse. BOOST was created to drive running shoe sales. The shoe crossed over and is one of Adidas’ better products, but make no mistake it was created for performance first. With this in mind it is important to state that Nike is the king of innovation in footwear. As Nike develops new ideas/technology in footwear they will regain their status as the leader in shoes that are flipped.
Did you catch that?
Nike’s ability to flip is based on technology. NIKE. Note I’m doing a bit of wordplay here. The question is Jordan Brand’s ability to regain flipping status. My comments on Nike right now are to set the grounds for a discussion on the death of flipping Nike related shoes (KD, LeBron, Kyrie, Kobe, PG).
Jordan Brand, as the comment by @blcklistd noted, is about scarcity and interest in the models that were actually associated with Michael Jordan. In other words, while most people know that Jordan Brand will always be the shoe that most people flip, this year that changed more than ever. Flipping Jordans doesn’t really work anymore unless you have a discount or you have early pairs.
Flipping Jordans this year did work when associated with MJ; the Air Jordan 1 High OG Banned/SB for example. The shoes that popped for flipping were the shoes that started MJs career, but there is an exception. The Black OG 5 did not pop. Which means that this question isn’t exactly rhetorical.
When I ask the question ” Will the Jordan Brand 2017 line reignite flipping?” It implies that I don’t think flipping Jordans will recover.
The truth is I do think Flipping Jordans will be in higher demand. Not because of the releases upcoming but because Nike won’t continue to create as many shoes as they did the past three years.
The Answer
Jordan Brand, and this is my observation based on what I’ve observed, created a ton of shoes over the last 3-5 years to create a surplus. During this time they closed a lot of small accounts that couldn’t keep up with ordering and payments. This was all a move to increase inventory and maintain Futures without a complete disruption that would trigger a drop in share price on the exchange. The problem is this increase in shoes that would eventually be rtv’d back to Nike and placed in the new Factory and Clearance Stores, along with NDC and SNKRS, to drive DTC didn’t anticipate a reinvigorated Adidas and a growing UA. Although these small disruptions left retailers with a lot of inventory and Nike with inventory, the 2017 Fiscal Report showed that the problem of inventory is no longer as bad and Matt Parker made it clear on the conference call that Nike would be scaling back on SKUs.
That last sentence is why Jordan Brand will regain its status as a product to Flip. Nike/JB will not be producing these releases in the huge numbers they have been doing. Scarcity will be the model that drives interest. With the DTC channels in place now there won’t be launches with 100,000 pair in every release. There also won’t be drops that are going to sit. Take the recent Air Jordan 16 release. The shoe was dropped in such limited quantities, with a price tag so high, that liquidating half of the shoes through DTC was a win, although that shoe didn’t pop in resale, you can’t really find it sitting in stores.
Now look at the releases for Spring 2017 from JB. The only questionable release is the Air Jordan 15. Notice however that the shoe is dropping in a BRED colorway. Every pair dropping represents shoes that have always performed well for the brand. My prediction for 2017…
Flipping of Jordans will be better than it was in 2016. What do you think?
Below are the releases I think will pop:
appreciate the shout out. whilst Jordan brand remains a force, im not sure myself whether Jordans can regain flipping status unless they can make the product appealing (tell a ‘good’ story with good colorways). small numbers isnt enough (esp with the amount of weekly drops that occur).
regardless of my thoughts, Jordans is still Nike’s biggest cow to milk of…
I think that comment by the CEO is big and now that the DTC channels are rolling, they won’t feel the need to maintain the appearance of Futures. They can trim the fat to increase margins which will mean scarcity and the correct models will increase interest again. All of this is guess work, but man it’s going to be an interesting 2017 starting with the All Star game drops. The Gumbo/Nola pack a few years ago did well, this year the storylines and Nola again may be a big boost… we will see.