Adidas has started moving the last part of its Yeezy inventory. Credit: Kyle Brinker
Advertisementidas has officially begun selling its remaining Yeezy inventory, valued at an estimated $1.3 billion, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting Kanye West and “organizations fighting discrimination and hate.”
The German sportswear and footwear company kicked off the Yeezy sale today, directing potential buyers to the Adidas Confirmed app (which at the time of writing ranked number three on the Play Store list of free shopping apps). As previously reported, Adidas will have to pay the 45-year-old a check worth around $140 million if the company moves all available inventory, though it remains in a legal battle with West.
And early evidence suggests there is a high demand for the Yeezy products in question, for which Adidas has arranged a series of “drops”. According to Confirmed, customers over the age of 13 (after providing a shipping address, shoe size and payment information) can “queue” to secure the items.
The app then randomly selects shoppers from that queue, encouraging Puerto Rico residents to switch to the Spanish-language “Bad Bunny” version of the platform via a homepage notification. At the time of writing, Yeezy Slides are again priced at a relatively modest $70 a pair, compared to a whopping $260 apiece for Yeezy Boost 700 V2 shoes and $210 for Yeezy 450s. Each item is shipped free of charge and cannot be returned, the platform clarifies.
By now, several of the hour-long raffles have already concluded, and potential buyers who missed out on the action are encouraged to register for the final ‘draws’. Not surprisingly, quite a few opportunistic buyers are attempting to resell their confirmed Yeezy orders — actual deliveries could take over three weeks, according to Adidas — at a significant premium on platforms like Ebay.
Presumably due to the abundance of available Adidas inventory, the astronomically expensive offerings (some of which cost sneakerheads $300 including shipping) seem to be finding few takers at the moment. And more broadly, it will be worth keeping an eye on the aforementioned legal showdown between Adidas and West, as well as the rapper’s other apparel endeavors in the months and years to come.
On the latter front, it’s clear that shoe fanatics willing, despite the controversy surrounding West (who is also embroiled in a legal standoff with Gap and still has more than 55 million monthly listeners on Spotify), are ready to buy hundreds of Spending dollars on Yeezys might also be interested in new products from the Atlanta native.