You’ll see the same sneaker listed in ten places, at ten different prices, with ten slightly different stories. So where should you buy it? It starts with understanding who you’re buying from. There are three types of sellers, and the difference affects the price you pay, the level of security you get and, sometimes, whether your pair is even authentic.
Retailers: the stores
This is the most straightforward category: official brand stores (such as Nike or adidas themselves) and regular webshops selling brand-new sneakers straight from the factory. You’ll usually pay around the recommended retail price, often with a discount during sales. New, with a receipt and the right to return. For the vast majority of sneakers, this is where you should shop — and where we compare prices.
Resellers: the middlemen
A reseller buys a sneaker (sometimes several pairs) and sells it on. This could be a private individual or a specialist store. There’s little money to be made on standard models, but reselling scarce drops is a different game: once those pairs are no longer available anywhere new, the reseller sets the price. Paying more than the recommended retail price is part of the deal.
Marketplaces: the intermediaries
Platforms such as StockX and Klekt don’t sell anything themselves — they connect buyers with resellers and authenticate the sneaker before it reaches you. That makes them reliable for rare pairs, but the price reflects the market: it can be considerably higher than the recommended retail price. You should also expect authentication and shipping fees.
What does this mean for you?
If you’re looking for a widely available model, buy from a retailer — it’s almost always the cheapest option, and that’s often where you’ll find the biggest price gap between stores to your advantage. If you want to get your hands on a sold-out drop, you’ll end up with a reseller or marketplace and pay the hype price. We explain exactly how these two worlds differ in terms of price in the rest of this guide to the sneaker market.