Women's sneaker resale is booming, says StockX

By

Robin Driver

Published
Feb 11, 2021

As it celebrates its fifth anniversary, resale platform StockX has released a report tracking the evolution of the market since it started business, highlighting trends including the skyrocketing popularity of women’s sneakers.
 

StockX, which was founded in Detroit in February 2016, pointed out that, despite the fact that the platform continues to see more sales of men’s sneakers, growth in sales of women’s sneakers has progressed at a significantly faster rate, rising 1,500x since the marketplace’s launch.
 
According to StockX, it currently sells the same number of women’s sneakers as it did in the whole of 2016 every four hours.

Homing in on a particularly popular brand, StockX also highlighted that more than 250,000 pairs of women’s exclusive Jordans were sold globally on the platform in 2020, up 120% from 2019.
 
The top-selling female sneaker models on the platform in 2020 included the Jordan 1 Retro High Satin Snake Chicago, the Jordan 1 Mid SE Multi-Color, and the Jordan 1 Retro High Lucky Green, reflecting the fact that the Jordan 1 has remained the top-traded Jordan silhouette across genders on StockX since 2016.
 
In terms of other brands and silhouettes, StockX reported some interesting changes in the sneaker resale landscape. For example, while Nike Air Max’s market share on StockX increased 800% from 2016 to 2020, Adidas Ultraboost’s fell 80% over the same period. In addition, the number of Nike Dunks in the top 1,000 sneakers on the platform has risen 25x over the last five years, while the number of LeBrons has fallen 60%.
 
Elsewhere, the average resale price of a pair of Yeezy 350s has fallen nearly 50%, dropping from $611 in 2016 to $330 in 2020.
 
StockX, which now boasts more than 900,000 lifetime sellers and offers in-house authentication services, also revealed the most popular fakes in 2016 and 2020. Five years ago, the most attempted fakes were the Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 V2 Beluga, the Jordan 1 Retro Bred “Banned” (2016) and the Jordan 11 Retro Space Jam (2016).
 
In 2020, however, the three most popular models among fakers were the Jordan 1 Retro High Off-White Chicago, the Jordan 1 Retro High Travis Scott, and the Jordan 4 Retro Off-White Sail, a women’s exclusive.
 
As the resale market has grown over the past few years, StockX has also gone from strength to strength. The platform currently has more than 120,000 product listings, including over 500 different brands, compared to 6,000 products and 17 brands in 2016.