Fetch
Hey,
I don’t consider myself a fashionable person by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve reached that age where I value feel, fit, and comfort over almost everything else. Occasionally though, something will catch my eye and my mind begins to run wild with all the limitless outfit possibilities. Sadly, it’s been way too long since that happened, but I recently got hope that I could turn a corner and become the sneakerhead I was always intended to be.
I was scrolling Instagram one day and all of a sudden I felt this rush of emotion come over me. It’s the same way I feel whenever I hear a song on Spotify’s New Music Friday that I enjoy, or the feeling when there’s exactly the right amount of orange juice left in the bottle to fill a pint glass from Taco Mac. I tried to maintain my excitement, but I failed miserably. I knew I had to have these shoes. Or rather, boots. Big red boots.
I had never heard of the New York streetwear brand MSCHF before but I was instantly enthralled by these shoes and needed to own a pair. They also produce a pair of boots that resemble the walking boot one gets after injuring themselves. Clever, indeed. On their website, I saw that the boots were going to be on sale beginning last Wednesday. I prepared my body to receive the gift that only big red boots can provide. I went to sleep Tuesday night dreaming of all of the ways I could customize and style these boots to make them a staple at Corbin’s Corner, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Wednesday brought me such heartache.
Because I’m such a novice when it comes to online shoe shopping, I didn’t realize that they could sell out. Shoe companies manipulate supply and demand so that, unlike most other consumer goods, you can’t simply buy a shoe or preorder it and receive one when they have more in stock. No, you have to essentially win a ticket lottery for the chance to purchase the shoes. If you don’t win the lottery, your only opportunity to land a pair revolves around robbery, having the right connections, or buying them from a reseller website. A typical example of a reseller website is StockX, which currently has the MSCHF boots on sale starting at $1,000. I can’t tell my financial advisor that I’ve spent $1,000 on a pair of shoes. Now I have a dilemma.
The budding sneakerhead in me has resigned to the fact that I will never own a pair of these shoes. The potential fashionista in me has me investigating new Jibbitz that I can acquire to spruce up the Crocs I received for my birthday. And the project manager in me laments how inefficient this process seems to be. There are so many ways that this situation could be avoided.
Better stock management in anticipation of huge releases such as this one. Improved security measures to prevent the site from being slammed by bots. And last but certainly not least, an actual preorder system that allows everyone that wants a pair to receive a pair. The steps I mentioned would go quite some ways to deterring the scarcity model that’s currently in place and bursting the bubble that is the current reseller’s market.
The heart always wants what it can’t have.