By the numbers: A year in sneaker resale with power seller Mustafa Hamed

Sneaker resale is big business. The market is currently worth around $2 billion globally, and it’s expected to grow to $30 billion by 2030.

But for the individual sellers who make their living from the business of buying and selling sneakers, it can be a risky vocation even as the market sees continued growth. Mustafa Hamed, a reseller who sells millions of dollars worth of sneakers through StockX every year, said the business has grown increasingly cutthroat as more people see the opportunity and enter the market.

“I’m lucky in that I got into it before Covid so I had to learn what sells,” Hamed said. He noted that the boom in sneaker resale during the pandemic meant new sellers could flip things easily, despite never having learned the skill of identifying a hot-selling item before it blows up. A former minor league baseball player, Hamed took to sneaker reselling in 2017 when he sold a pair of Nike Bearbrick SB Dunks and made a $70 profit.

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