By BRIYANNA GAMBLE
Sheridan High School Student
The Sheridan Student Column is brought to readers by Sheridan High School’s 10th grade English class, taught by Abby Williams.
Braden Weaver, a junior at Sheridan High School, makes $4,000 to $5,000 a month in sales. How, might you ask? He takes refurbished shoes and sells them for more than he paid for them.
From a young age, Braden has always had a love for shoes. In middle school, while looking through Flight Club and Stadium Goods he realized he could start his own business one day and make money from selling shoes.
In late November of 2021, Braden sold almost all his personal shoes, keeping one pair – a pair of Uggs his grandma bought him for Christmas. He used Snapchat, Instagram, and Offer Up to sell these shoes, and he continues to use them to this day. Braden sold most of the shoes to people locally but had a few he had to ship. After selling basically his whole collection, he bought a pair of Black Cat Jordan 4s for $200, which now sell for $1,000. He sold them for $560, and he had officially started his own business.
What does the life of a shoe reseller look like? Braden attends school every day from 8:00 in the morning until 3:00 in the afternoon. During these hours he’s balancing his schoolwork and his business all at once. He’s constantly looking for more shoes to buy and speaking to people online about buying the shoes he’s selling. Once Braden gets home, he posts and reposts his shoes. He has to walk to the post office to sell his shoes or find rides to meet up somewhere since he can’t drive yet. Braden doesn’t have his own transportation, so he asks friends and family to drive him places to meet up with people.
How does Braden decide what’s a good shoe to buy and what isn’t? Well, he focuses on one main aspect: whether the shoe is popular. If it is, it will most definitely sell. Then he looks at if it’s clean, whether he can clean it, and if he can make profit from it. Making a profit is one of the most important things, he says, because no profit means no pay. He also decided to mainly buy and sell Jordans and Yeezys.
Braden actually faces a couple challenges in this business. While meeting with random strangers to sell his shoes, he never knows who he’s going to meet. Scamming is a popular thing with online selling. Braden has been scammed once and he lost $400 from it. It brought him down, but he got right back up and started selling and buying again.
Braden said the only advice he can give to others wanting to start their own shoe business is to stay focused and buy for your company. Staying focused is so difficult, especially at such a young age, but you have to for your business. Buying for your company is the main part of being a shoe reseller, he says. Seeing so many shoes that you want and buying them is the worst thing you can do. If you know they won’t sell and aren’t popular, do not buy them. It’s basically wasting money.
Braden’s favorite part of being a shoe reseller is seeing so many pairs of shoes he never expected to see in real life in his hands. He always makes sure to at least try them on once before selling them.
Braden has an amazing idea for his future and wants to become very popular. He wants to get his own website and reseller store, and become rich, of course. Hopefully while running his own store and website he will have a pair of Travis Scott Friends and Family Jordan 4’s on his feet.