Short answer: retail is what the shoe cost at release, market is the average of what it has actually been selling for lately, and resale is what you personally can get for your pair in your size and your condition. Three numbers. They are frequently nowhere near each other.
People lose money on sneakers by quoting the wrong one of the three. Here is how I read them.
Retail: the least useful number
Retail tells you what Nike or Adidas charged on release day. It is useful for exactly one thing: knowing whether a shoe is trading above or below the line it launched at. Beyond that it has no bearing on value. A $110 SB Dunk can trade at $400 and a $250 collab can sit under retail for years.
Treat retail as context, not as a valuation.
Market: the number to anchor on
Market price is the rolling average of completed sales — pairs that actually changed hands, in a specific size, at a specific condition grade. This is the honest number, and it is the one I show on every product page alongside what I am charging, so you can see the gap yourself instead of taking my word for it.
Two things people get wrong here:
- They read asks instead of sales. Anyone can list a pair at any price. Listing is free. A completed sale has a buyer attached to it and an ask does not.
- They ignore the spread. If a shoe has a $188 low and a $384 high, the average is not the story — the spread is. A wide spread means the market has not settled and you are negotiating, not looking things up.
Resale: market, minus friction
Resale is what lands in your account. Start at market, then subtract:
- Platform fees, which on the big marketplaces run roughly 10-15% before payment processing
- Shipping, both directions if it comes back
- Authentication delays, which cost you time and sometimes the sale
- Condition, which is where most of the money moves
Condition is the part collectors underestimate. The gap between deadstock and a lightly worn pair of the same shoe is routinely 30-40%, and the gap between worn and worn-with-no-box is larger again. The box is not packaging on a collector pair — it is part of the item.
How to price a pair in five minutes
- Find the style code on the size tag.
- Look up completed sales for that code in your size, not the size run average.
- Filter to your condition grade. If you are not sure what grade you have, read the condition guide.
- Take the median of the last handful of sales, not the high one you want to be true.
- Subtract fees if you are selling; compare against the ask if you are buying.
What this looks like on my listings
Every pair I sell shows the retail figure where I have it, the market average, and my price — and where my price sits under market, it says by how much. I would rather you check my math than trust my adjectives. Shop the current inventory and the numbers are right there on the page.
650+ pairs placed with collectors, 99.1% positive on eBay since 2016. That record exists because I price honestly, not because I price low.