Rookie to Supplier: The Story of Goated Closet
Thousands of dollars every month, hours of work, and hundreds of shoes: This is the story of my reselling business. This is Goated Closet.
The story starts in middle school when my dad told me that he wouldn't buy me a car when I needed it and that I wasn't allowed to use his. I knew I had to find a way to make money and save for the car, but I didn't want to work a typical boring job at a fast food place. I was also starting to get into shoes during that time because it was a way for me to express what I liked. I eventually linked them together and began reselling shoes.
The first pair of shoes I ever resold was the Nike Air Jordan 1 'Rookie of The Year', and what a fitting name. I was most definitely a rookie. I sold the shoe immediately after purchasing it on an app called StockX. This was my first mistake. For those of you that have never used StockX, there are two things you should know. The first is that StockX has incredibly high selling fees for a new seller, meaning you lose at least 10% of your sale money just by paying those fees. The second thing is that right after a release, there are usually people who undercut the value of the shoe to sell it quickly. These things combined led me to a whopping profit of $10. The shoe cost me $160, so my return on investment (ROI) was a high 6.2%. This is not the most encouraging data point to see on your first sale, but it was enough to convince me that this could be a viable business idea.
Throughout middle school, I kept the business going on a very small scale, with a couple of sales a week, but as I entered high school, I started being a little more adventurous with how I purchased my shoes and was able to get more and more inventory. Kids at school started buying shoes off of me for themselves, and the business was picking up. Eventually, someone, I sold a shoe to mentioned he owned a fashion store, and as I continued to sell to him, our relationship grew stronger. I eventually became a supplier for his store and sold hundreds of shoes to him alone. This allowed me to scale my business at a very fast rate.
Going into my junior year in high school, it became clear that I would need to stop reselling to focus on my SAT and AP tests that year. I took a break from reselling and returned the summer before my senior year. I started my own Instagram account. Up to this point, I had been sharing an account with a friend because I wasn't allowed to use Instagram, and I didn't have a smartphone until the summer before my senior year. I sold my portion of the old account to my friend and learned how to run an Instagram page properly (shoutout Aarthi). I am working on remaking some connections and hopefully scaling up very soon. I have also mentored three of my friends to do the same thing, and they have made hundreds of dollars off of shoes now. I am incredibly excited to see where the future takes Goated Closet.
My first shoe resold: https://stockx.com/air-jordan-1-retro-high-rookie-of-the-year (value of the shoe has shot up since I sold it)
Goated Closet's Instagram account!: https://www.instagram.com/goated_closet/
The old Instagram account that I ran with my friend: https://www.instagram.com/red.carpet.boys/
Goated Closet's eBay account: https://www.ebay.com/usr/goatedcloset
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I plan to use this website to showcase what I like to do / what I am interested in, and I am open to discussing anything I post. I would love to connect with anyone who has something to talk about. If interested in contacting me, click HERE.