Sell sneakers: A lawyer explains what is legal

This article was published on August 9th, 2018 by Orange - the young portal of the Handelsblatt.

If you want to have a pair of "Yeezy 500" this evening, you need one thing above all: time. People of all ages are waiting in front of the Afew Store in Düsseldorf. They wear clothes littered with brand names. Some look like they were cut out of a hipster magazine and placed outside the shoe store as cardboard cutouts. Most of them have thousands of dollars worth of sneakers in their closets - some as many as 50 pairs. Another pair is to be added today: The "Yeezy 500" is a shoe that the German sporting goods manufacturer Adidas designed together with US rapper Kanye West. New price in store: 200 euros. A bargain! Because you can make a lot more money with the kicks.

Nike, Adidas and Jordan: How resellers make money out of their sneakers

Sebastian is also waiting in front of the store. However, the 16-year-old is an exception in the crowd. He only owns four pairs of sneakers. He doesn't even need the "Yeezy 500" himself. "I want to resell the shoes and then I hope to get up to 300 euros for them," he says. Sebastian is a reseller. That's what they call people who buy sneakers to sell them for more money. That this works at all is because there is only a limited number of shoes. This is called a limited edition. As more people want one of the few pairs, the price goes up.

Resellers make a profit with sneakers: is reselling legal?

The principle is the same as on the stock exchange: if many people want to buy a share, it becomes more expensive. If, on the other hand, it is not asked, its value decreases. So are sneakers the new stocks? Anyway, they are an alternative way to make money. There's even a sneaker exchange where you can see how much your shoes are currently worth.

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The Stockx.com website looks like the stock market information you know from NTV, for example. Except that instead of the Dax or the Dow Jones, the Jordan or Nike index runs through the picture. How high each shoe is currently in the market is determined on the basis of supply and demand.

But is that legal? We ask the legal advice platform anwalt.de - and get Tina Heil on the phone, who is an expert in commercial law. She says: Basically, you can buy shoes and sell them for more money. However, resellers should not trade sneakers at will.

"Everyone who does something to make a profit is doing business," says the lawyer. This means that resellers may have to register a business and pay taxes accordingly.

What matters is how often they sell shoes. One or two pairs are no problem, says Heil. However, it is difficult to say when one is regularly active. "When in doubt, you should exercise caution and better register a business." If you don't do that, you're taking a risk. At worst, they could face charges of tax evasion and fines.

Resellers: Buy Adidas shoes for 200 euros - and sell them for 300 euros

Adidas launched a shoe in January that the company designed in cooperation with the Berliner Verkehrs Gesellschaft (BVG). The shoe originally cost 180 euros. The 500 copies were sold out within a few minutes. Some resellers have made more than 1000 euros profit with the rare sneakers.

In contrast, the 100 euros profit that Sebastian is hoping for seems downright puny. The reason for this is the higher edition of the "Yeezy 500". Because there are more of the shoes, the value for collectors goes down and the resellers make less profit. But 100 euros for a bit of a queue doesn't sound bad either - but you not only have to be patient, you also have to be lucky.

Because if you want to get hold of a "Yeezy 500" in the Afew Store, you had to take part in a raffle. But that doesn't mean that you get the shoes for free in the end. The shop draws lots to see who can buy the sneakers for 200 euros. No joke! The losers get nothing and have to keep their money.

Suddenly the crowd in front of the Düsseldorf shop moved. Two salespeople come out of the store, everyone else follows them around the corner. There's more room for the crowd. Lilly, who takes care of the service in the shop, holds the magic list in her hand. Anyone who is called now only has to identify themselves - and can then go shopping.

The whole thing is a bit reminiscent of the series "The Bachelor". The only thing missing is that the saleswoman says that unfortunately she doesn't have any sneakers for Sebastian today. The 16-year-old goes away empty-handed. Others in the crowd may rejoice. Christian, for example, who got a pair and wants to wear them himself: "I just think they're chic. They are popular and have style. They're something not everyone has."

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Afew saleswoman Lily gets in a bad mood when you ask her about resellers like Sebastian: "That's not possible! Some come, pick up the shoe and then sell it one step further in the store for a 1000. We don't support that at all, but we can't avoid it, we can't control it," says the 26-year-old.

Manufacturers like Nike and Adidas can't do anything about resellers - why should they? After all, those with the hype are indirectly advertising them - and all for free. By the way, business is great.

Adidas only presented good numbers this Thursday. Between January and the end of June, the company made almost eleven billion euros in sales - three percent more than in the first half of 2017. The bottom line was more than 900 million euros in profit. Adidas generates 60 percent of its income with shoes alone.

Sebastian remains relaxed despite the bad luck in Düsseldorf: "It's a matter of luck who gets the shoes in the end and then you can do whatever you want with them," he says. He thinks it's a pity that he couldn't buy any sneakers today, but that's not a big deal either. He just wants to wait for the next limited edition pair to resell.

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