Dominick Ruiz sat at the kitchen table in his parents’ townhouse and held up the Kanye West Adidas 750 Boost size 8 like they were crown jewels.
He bought them from a friend for $2,000. He thinks he could resell them for twice that, or even more. But, man, are they comfortable, so he’s keeping them for himself.
“I’m lucky to have this shoe,” Ruiz said.
Ruiz, 16, is an up-and-coming star in the sneaker resale market, an estimated $1.2 billion-a-year industry in the U.S., where sneakerheads buy and sell rare shoes through social media and at trade shows like baseball cards or stocks.
It is not a typical summer job. He is on his cellphone at all hours. He drives hard bargains. He is desperate for respect in an industry where his peers can flash sharp elbows and attitude. And sometimes it can go horribly wrong. His mentor and best friend Jamal Gaines was killed in a robbery last February at East Coast Boutique, a sneaker store in Rahway. Gaines was 21.
Ruiz was shattered. But he pressed on, drawn to the connections he has made, energized by the challenge and the money by tracking down the right shoe in the right size.
“He’s trustworthy,” said Joseph Diorio, 37, the owner of Solexchange, which will host a convention Saturday and Sunday at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus. “He has a very good reputation. If he says he’s going to get you a shoe, he’s going to get you a shoe. If you don’t have trust in the community, you don’t get anywhere.”
Ruiz is going into his junior year at Manalapan High School. He lives here with his father, David, and mother, Elaine. He has an older brother, David. And his attraction to sneakers isn’t complicated; he said he simply likes fashion and what shoes can bring to his appearance.
From fashion statement to big business
When he was 12, he went to Foot Action at the Freehold Raceway Mall and bought a pair of Nike Air Jordan Doernbecher 4 for about $200, using the money he made from chores he did around the house. He tired of wearing them and went a couple of years later to a sneaker show in Manhattan, where he ran into an attendee who offered him $800 for them to give to his girlfriend.
It was a tidy return 300% on an investment he didn’t even know he made. He kept going to shows, making connections with savvy traders like Diorio and Gaines, who told him he, too, could cash in.
And he got help. He worked at East Coast Boutique, taking photos for the store’s Instagram account, which has 100,000 followers. Gaines suggested Ruiz include a picture of himself and his own Instagram address in one of the posts, and he took off. Ruiz now has 24,200 followers who can see his latest products: Nike Air Jordan Shadow 1 for $300; Nike Air Jordan Royal 1 for $500; and photos of himself sporting his favorites.
“When I first started, I never thought I would have $10,000 worth of sneakers,” Ruiz said. “I didn’t think it would become this big sneaker world where people are paying $5,000 for a sneaker. I never would have thought that would have been me. But now I go to sneaker events and spend that.”
It has become a big sneaker world. A pair of Air Jordan Doernbecher 4 is listed on eBay for $1,750. A pair of Nike Air Yeezy 2 is listed on The Solexchange for $6,000.
In all, some 9 million pairs of sneakers are resold each year nationwide, Josh Luber, who is developing analytics to track the industry, said in a Ted Talk he gave last October in San Francisco.
It’s an unregulated market that essentially was created by Nike by controlling the supply of shoes that it makes, he said. And it releases them into a market of fans called sneakerheads who have a passion that isn’t unlike baseball cards or rare coins or vintage automobiles.
“But once a pair leaves the retail channel, it’s the Wild West,” Luber said in the talk.
Harsh lessons from the sneaker world
Ruiz speaks with a confidence and energy you would expect of a 16-year-old who plans to buy a Lexus or Infiniti for his first car with money he made himself. But when he recounts his story, there is a trace of cynicism, too, for which he seems too young.
He has had to learn not to get frustrated at sneaker shows when sellers see his youth and don’t take him seriously. He wishes his social media followers, hidden behind anonymity, would simply be more respectful in their comments. He is miffed that customer service seems to be a lost art.
As he learns the ropes, the ropes can get frayed. He met Jamal Gaines, the co-owner of East Coast Boutique, at a sneaker show and was drawn to Gaines’ rags-to-riches story. Gaines took him under his wing, lending him money to purchase shoes he thought would pay off, teaching him how to value a pair of sneakers, giving him a shout-out on social media.
When Ruiz learned his friend was killed in a robbery, he took a brief break.
“I was definitely paranoid at first, and I stopped sneakers for a week, two weeks,” Ruiz said, “but then you have to keep moving. I know he wouldnโt want me to stop. He wouldnโt want me to stop. He loved this. So I just stuck with it, and I kept doing it.โ
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| Dominick Ruiz, left, with friend and mentor Jamal Gaines. Gaines was killed in February in a robbery. |
Any shoe you’d want
His parents are wary, but supportive. They don’t let him attend sneaker shows alone anymore.
“Do I worry? Of course I worry,” Elaine Ruiz, 50, said. “It’s a lot for a kid to handle.”
“Heโs a really good judge of character, and he is wise beyond his years and he communicates both with his dad and myself,” she said. “The communication and the bond that we have has helped him.”
Ruiz will be at the Meadowlands Exposition Center this weekend, which also will feature rappers Wacka Flocka and Lilโ Uzi Vert. And then the school year begins, and Ruiz will be back in class and trading sneakers in a juggling act that he acknowledges isn’t ideal. He knows he needs to improve his grades and land a good SAT score if he wants to reach his goal and go to college.
After that, who knows? But for now, life is pretty good for a teenager who can get any shoe you want.
“I bought this shoe off of a good friend for, like, $350,” he said, holding a Nike Supreme Air Force 1 Hi. “I could get, like, $500 for it, but I think I’m going to keep it because it’s a size 8, and it’s hard to come by in my size.”
