On Dec. 20 of last year I woke up a few hours before work and went for my phone. I opened Nike’s SNKRS app — a sneaker lottery app that gives lucky fanatics a chance to buy limited-edition shoes — and scrolled to make sure my entries were in for the Off-White Nike Dunks being released that day.
Going into this drawing, I was 0-for-37 on the app since I downloaded it in 2017. I’d gotten used to taking the loss. L after L after L. Yet here I was, refreshing repeatedly after the draw closed. I’d entered for all three colors being released (red, green and navy blue) and knew from past experience that results would be posted by color. So I sat and waited and refreshed.
I thought about my most devastating losses to date: The Travis Scott Jordan 4’s in June 2018. The Panda Dunks I swore I was going to snag in January 2019. The Sacai LD Waffles — you know, the green ones with the orange and black swooshes — from May of 2019. Name a design and I have a story of failure that comes with it.
My worst day ever on SNKRS actually came when Nike released its first set of Off-White shoes in collaboration with designer extraordinaire Virgil Abloh. Eight shoes from that collection, called “The Ten.” had been released on Nov. 20 of 2017, gradually appearing on the SNKRS app throughout that afternoon.
Before the first pair dropped, I did what I had to do. I set up payment info, my shipping address and everything else. Managed to get the pair in my virtual cart and tried to check out. They were stuck on “pending,” which essentially meant I was waiting in a virtual line to pick up the shoes off of Nike’s virtual shelf and then get in another virtual line to actually buy them.
After about a 10 minute wait, I was at the edge of my seat, face down with my head on my desk, just waiting on my verdict. Then, all of a sudden, my phone vibrates. I grab it, see the SNKRS notification, unlock it and swipe down, full of anticipation like I’m a 3-year-old unwrapping gifts on his birthday. And there it is — my first L of the day. “Didn’t get ‘em,” the app says, cementing my failure in virtual stone.
No need to fear, right? I’ve got seven more chances at other pairs. I can do this. There are more than enough sneakers to go around. Rinse, wash, repeat. L after L after L. Nothing but Ls.
And, honestly, that’s what I’m expecting on this day, two years later, a few days before Christmas, the holiday spirit all around and me feeling glum and already defeated as I scroll through the app. I lose out on the red pair. I lose out on the navy blue pair. It’s happening again. I should have figured.
Then it happens.
At 10:17 a.m. the notification hits: “GOT IT.”
FINALLY. The streak is dead.
THE STREAK IS DEAD. 1-38. WE DID IT!!!! pic.twitter.com/szglTWDz7o
— Michael Sykes, II (@MikeDSykes) December 20, 2019
Introducing the SNKRS app
By the time I got that unexpected W, I’d already started working on this story about the heartbreak NIKE had caused me, because I wanted to know if I was alone. Was anyone getting lucky? Was this all just a vast mirage … Nike leading a planet of sneakerheads on, only to disappoint us every time? I had to find out, so I asked sneaker Twitter about their personal SNKRS app journeys.
It turns out that most people had an experience similar to mine: Losses, mostly, but occasional luck. This is life for sneakerheads like me who don’t have a plug (an insider who gets me access to exclusives) or a bot programmed to put sneakers in queue as quickly as possible (yes, this exists.) We’re destined to lose, most of the time. But we come back. Nike makes sure of it.
The Oregon-based retailer launched its SNKRS app in 2015 as a way to give consumers access the latest and most sought-after drops.
It’s a sneakerhead’s go-to source for everything related to Nike releases. The app includes content about certain exclusive shoes, a calendar and even shows you what’s available for you to purchase right now. It’s supposed to make everything about the process of buying premier shoes easier.
That’s not how any of this is playing out in practice, though. The app only increases demand. It builds hype and then allows hundreds of thousands of people to try to buy. So the scarcity that fuels the sneaker and streetwear industries make copping anything of interest a Sisyphean task. If you stop to think about the process — and your odds — the sheer ridiculousness of it all might make you give up.
Nike has been coy about the logistics behind SNKRS, but we tried to get some answers. We asked for specifics about the Bred 11 drop from November 2019. We came with a list of questions
- How many shoes were released, total, and how many were sold through SNKRS?
- How many people did they estimate would try to purchase them?
- How many folks, generally speaking, log on to the app for a drop like this?
Nike refused to share any of that information. All of it is related to what the company calls “strategy and process,” a spokesperson told me, “which we don’t divulge as they are proprietary.”
So, generally speaking, without inside information, there’s no way to know how many pairs are dropping, nor how many people are trying to get them (the SNKRS app has been downloaded nearly 400 million times from the Apple store alone). There’s no way of telling where you are in line or how many people are ahead of you. If we’re being honest, most times the process is just a waste of time.
Yet, none of this is really new information. Sneakerheads know this coming in — how unlikely it is they’ll leave with what they want. But they still try.
The everlasting misery behind the L
“As far as in the morning, I have to have a cup of coffee and a shoulder to cry on.” This is how sneaker connoisseur and therapist Shawn Muth starts his weekends, he tells me.
Alert, ready and prepared for the worst, Muth picks up his phone and bounces between two SNKRS accounts to try and cop the goods. Does his strategy work? Depends on who you ask.
Muth has had some success. He’s won big exclusives like the Travis Scott Jordan 1’s and the Sean Wotherspoon Air Max 97/1 fusions (on the restock, he clarifies). Still, though, he’s left unsatisfied.
He’s just doing simple math. Since the app released in 2015, Nike has had hundreds of drawings and exclusive sneakers drop through it over the years. Muth says he’s entered in “literally every single one” and doesn’t have much to show for it.
“The percentage would have to be like 5 percent, maybe a little more,” Muth tells me. Sounds mad familiar, honestly.
Dion Johnson, editor in chief of Champagne in The Locker Room, shares the same story.
Johnson built a strategy out, too. His might be a bit more thorough. He relies on the power of the group chat. He found friends who were also tired of taking endless L’s on the app. They decided to try their hand at it together, working for each other to buy their favorite shoes.
It’s simple: Somebody throws the notification of the drop into the chat, the rest of the squad says if they’re in or out and they try to cop enough pairs to satisfy everyone interested in the chat.
“If we have the money, we will try to cop for a homie who can’t get through,” he told me.
Has it worked? Not really. He says he’s about 4-30 in draws so far. Like everyone else, he’s often doomed to go to aftermarket sites like Stadium Goods or StockX to find what he missed out on … at triple the price.
“That’s what annoys me. I’m not paying all of that for a shoe. Retail is enough,” he said. “It’s wack that you’ve got to do all of this.”
It’s not all bad all the time for some. Young Park, a resident Washingtonian Sneakerhead, says his SNKRS record is 5-12. If you’re an NFL team that’s awful. For a sneaker lovers? GOAT status. Wild, I know.
How does Park do it? He simply picks his battles. If there’s an exclusive drop he wants, he’s more than prepared. “I set up reminders and alarms for it and I use all of my devices — phones, iPad, laptops — to get what I want,” he told me. Park puts in the work, but even he is batting less than .420. Even for those who are totally committed, a lot of this comes down dumb luck.
Just chalk it up to the game
Nike has basically mastered the gamification of sneakers. The shoes customers are trying to cop have become tiered prizes, with Nike’s non-limited regular fare serving as a consolation. You buy the exclusives on the day they come out? Great, you win the game. You miss out? Go buy something similar that won’t quite hit the same but will fill your heart for the time being.
That’s the system. That’s how it works. It’s a never-ending cycle of misery and bliss for your average sneakerhead.
“It’s got to be the thrill of the chase,” Muth said.
Nike knows this. Their consumers are fanatics — they’ll do anything to get their hands on specific pieces. NIKE is catering to the most devoted.
“One pattern is pretty reflective of the fanatical community, it’s pretty hard core. They’re super engaged,” Ron Faris, the Nike vice president who oversees SNKRS. “They are probably the ones with the most knowledge that they’d like to share with others.”
Nike is very much hoping to grow and use its engaged audience, turning its content into something shareable. The goal is to create a larger community where those fanatics are sharing their culture with casuals who have a mild interest in sneakers.
Nike has already begun the process in expanding that reach. It is building out a digital strategy using the SNKRS app as a blueprint in other categories. Can it work with a category like, say, running apparel, that lacks the same exclusivity factor? We’ll see.
Shoes — sneakers, specifically — are just different. The love and passion doesn’t make sense; it’s irrational, but it grew organically. Sneakerheads live for the moment where someone walks up to them and says “Wow, you actually got those?” Those are the conversations that drive the chase. Those are the connections that are built through the shoes that most people miss out on. It’s hard to say if they can exist the same anywhere else.
“At the end of the day, I just love shoes. And I think Nike is genius for creating a method of social engagement for people like you and I with SNKRS,” Park said.
The wild thing about it? Nike knows exactly what it is doing. The company could easily drop more pairs of shoes and every single sneakerhead out there could get one. But that’s not the point. The point is failure — that’s what brings us back. It’s why why we feel the need to enter every drawing and try to get every exclusive sneaker in cart — we want to win. Nike needs me and all the folks like me to go 0-37 so that, on the 38th try when we finally hit, we don’t hesitate to pay. They want me to hop on Twitter and share my dub in a Tweet with all my friends. They’ve taken sneaker shopping and turned it into the thrill of a roulette wheel, and hoo buddy do people love to gamble.
I wasn’t sure what would happen when I finally successfully got what I hoped for from the SNKRS app. Maybe the app would lose all the intrigue. Maybe I’d continue my chase elsewhere, through other avenues.
But then Nike brought me back in. A couple of weeks after the Off-White dunk released, Nike dropped another SB Dunk retro — the Rayguns.
You have to understand, these shoes mean something to me. I remember the first time I discovered them — it was 2007, I was a teenager, and, like every other teenager in the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia), I was obsessed with the rapper Wale.
I was a huge Wale fan back in my heyday. Still am, honestly. If I’m being truthful about it, he’s one of the biggest reasons why I love sneakers the way I do. He walked me down this path. One of my favorite records from Wale, to this day, is a song called “Kicks.”
Second verse, a minute and 30 seconds into the song, he breaks out:
“Cheer for the green pack, I’m a Cheesehead
Rayguns on young make police scared
Pradas on a Monday, Dunks on a Tuesday
J’s on a Wednesday, mix it up the whole week”
Immediately, I took to the internet. I needed to know what these Rayguns were.
I thought about going to NikeTalk and asking what they were, but I was afraid of getting roasted for not knowing. Eventually, through Google, I found them. They were pricey, and I was 14, so they wouldn’t be mine.
As time has gone by, the OG shoe’s value on the secondary market has ballooned way out of my price range to over $1,000. They were always just a dream.
Well, until December, anyway. Nike re-released the shoes. They weren’t exactly the same as the originals, but close enough. I had to go for them.
And, for the second time ever, I won. I’m now 2-for-39.
Was it a message from the sneakergods? Nike’s algorithms understanding that I needed a perfect end to my story? Stupid luck? Who knows. All I know is I’m happy with my purchases.
Now, all that’s left to decide is what I’m keeping … and what I’m selling.