High-Profit High-Tops

Looking for a hot investment tip? It could be on your feet. Once just the realm of fashion, sneakers are gaining value as collectibles. Sneakerheads—people who collect, trade, and admire sneakers—line up for hours for a chance to snag limited-edition pairs of shoes. 

While many sneakerheads want to wear their purchases, some sneakers are in such high demand that teens can capitalize on their kicks. They sell them on the aftermarket, where people resell goods after their original release. This can translate into big bucks. Economists value the sneaker aftermarket at $1 billion.

“The most successful way to make money with shoes is to resell them,” says Fedor Kirilenko, a 14-year-old sneakerhead from Los Angeles. He goes by the name Sneaker Boy on his YouTube channel, where he reviews shoes and clothing.

If they have the cash, many sneakerheads will buy in bulk. This, in turn, increases demand and ups the resale price. “They look at it as an investment,” says Eric Ariel, founder of Just the Kickz, a website that alerts followers to new sneaker releases.

Josh Luber also saw this connection between shoes and stocks, so he created StockX. It’s a marketplace where people can trade sneakers like they would for shares of stock in a company. “Sneakers follow the same basic economic principles of anything with a high resale value,” says Luber.

For example, Fedor bought a pair of Adidas Yeezy Boost 750s for $350. He resold them for more than four times that. Critics wonder if spending hundreds on shoes is responsible. No one knows if the sneaker aftermarket will continue to boom or go bust.

But profit isn’t the only driving force for sneakerheads. Fedor, who uses his 78-pair collection as the backdrop to his videos, also enjoys the connections he makes with the sneaker community.

“I really love shoes because of their ability to bring people together,” says Fedor. “We don’t just talk about how the shoes look, but more importantly the story behind them and the origins of the shoe.”

Use the information in the boxes below each sneaker to find the percent change in their aftermarket value. Round your answers to the nearest dollar.