The sneaker resale market is seeing new opportunities due to the global thirst for up-charged pairs of Yeezys or limited edition Jordans combined with a growth in a digital platform.
The company just raised a $6 million Series A round, led by Gobi Partners, Pacific Century Group and Complex China, to strengthen its foothold in the U.S.
Kicks Crew wants to be a resell platform that can be counted on for product authenticity and accessibility for all.
The B2B2C sneaker marketplace model involves working directly with verified retailers of the brands they carry and guarantees product authenticity for consumers, as well as the chief operating officer and co-founder at Kicks Crew Ross Adrian Yip, who previously worked for the U.S. sneaker platform GO
Other competitors have a C2B2C business model and work with individual sellers.
Yip said that even with ML and AI-assisted authentication, the process is still manual and reliant on human judgement and mistakes will occur. Kicks Crew currently utilizes radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, where each product can be uniquely identified to the sellers by the company. Yip also said that the firm plans to incorporate more transparency to the customer by implementing blockchain technology to access the product’s order and quality control information via a QR code.EBay takes a bite at StockX and GOAT with sneaker authentication for sales $100+ in the US
Kicks Crew wants to address the gap in the current market that is hyper-focused on limited editions and luxury offerings, despite growing demand and a large addressable market in the general athletic footwear and apparel segment.
Anything they're looking for is easily accessible here, and that means creating a platform that doesn't alienating customers based on product offering or price point.
Chibo Tang, managing partner of Gobi Partners, said in a statement that most platforms target the relatively niche high-end collectibles segments and put less emphasis on the larger everyday sneaker consumer.
The startup has worked with a number of large direct-to-consumer platforms, including Amazon, eBay, Tmall.com andJD.com. The company says its platform makes it possible for creators, curators and consumers to come together.
The site has over 400,000 styles of products, including popular brands like Nike, Adidas, and more. The gross merchandise value grew more than 15x in the last two years, and its traffic increased more than 5x. Kicks Crew wants to increase its staff to 150 employees this year.
The main markets for Kicks Crew are the US, Canada, Australia and Asia. The startup's top Asian markets are Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
Kicks Crew sees potential to expand its business in Southeast Asian countries that have a wide potential audience with no dominant player, making the region ripe for the startup to disrupt the athletic footwear buying experience. The startup is considering countries like the Philippines, a nation known for its love of basketball, as well as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, all of which have a growing consumer base with brands, he said.
Global adaptability and an ever-evolving mindset have always been our DNA, according to the statement.
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