Shoeing around

After seeing a pair of Yeezys he had been wanting, senior Adrian Kim started to think of ways he could afford the shoes. However, he soon found a new world of people reselling shoes and began his new hobby: reselling shoes. 

Kim now owns a business, which he pursues as a hobby on the side, where he resells shoes. Kim started his business in hopes of making a profit and has now sold $60,000 worth of shoes and made $15,000 worth of profit.

“If I’m going to be honest, [I started the shoe business to] just make more money,” Kim said. “I feel like there isn’t really another need to be reselling, [and I] feel like the purpose of reselling is to just make money but, you know, it’s always nice to sell a pair of shoes to someone for just like 20 [to] 30 bucks cheaper than someone else and they get excited about it.”

Kim sold his first pair, the Air Jordan Off-White Muslin shoe, in February 2020. After being able to win the shoe through a raffle, he was able to sell the shoe for a high price to the high demand. Kim sells his shoes most commonly through GOAT, a sneaker reselling platform. 

“I wouldn’t say [that selling shoes takes up] too much [of my] time,” Kim said. [Usually during the] weekends, which is when the most exclusive drops are, I just have to wake up at 9 [a.m] and then spend like five minutes entering a [online] raffle for it. Then once I get the shoe in, I just reship it out to someone else, [so the whole process takes up] at most five hours a week. Most of the time, I’m just scrolling through Instagram doing my own thing. Since I actually do enjoy sneakers, the time I spend [finding shoe] releases I can make money off of [is something] I enjoy doing, [so] it’s not like work or anything.” 

Kim’s girlfriend, senior Angel Wang, said she is proud of Kim for pursuing something he loves and being successful at what he does. 

“He’s very smart, in [a] finance way, [and] he’s up on the trend with shoes and knows how to work with and make money,” Wang said. “A lot of time you see him on his phone, but he’s made like Google sheets and he’s [always] on Instagram to look at shoes. He’s very busy at work.” 

Kim hopes to pursue his business after graduating high school and hopes to attend the University of Texas at Dallas to major in business. Senior Ian Park has been with Kim throughout his reselling process and has learned a lot about reselling.

“[Adrian] has a really strong character [and] he kind of just does whatever he wants,” Park said. “He’s always been interested in shoes and sneakers and the only way [he could] get more [shoes] was to make money on his own [through his shoe business, and from there] it grew more and more and he’s [been] pretty successful.”

Kim said he has been able to learn a lot from his shoe business and learn what he wants to do in the future. 

“I can’t work for someone else [because] I have too much pride for that [and] it just doesn’t sit right in my head,” Kim said. “[I hope to do something] along with being a business owner or maybe [own] a restaurant because I also like to cook. As of right now, I was thinking of being a stockbroker. The true end goal is maybe to own just a giant sneaker store.”