The Nike Store at Guildford Town Centre opened Oct. 9, although there wasn’t much advertising that the store would open that day — due to management not being sure they’d be ready in time.
Then, during the first two weeks of November, management at Nike Guildford decided to finally release limited edition sneakers that came out throughout this year to promote the official opening of the store.
Brian Paquette is the general manager at Nike Guildford. He explained the process was for getting these sneakers out and explained the pluses and minuses of launching these shoes at his store in Guildford Town Centre.
Q: Why did Nike Guildford restock on several limited edition sneakers?
Paquette: Nike Guildford restocked on some of its limited releases to encourage the Surrey community to come and check out what Nike has to offer. Nike Guildford is a market for those who want the newest and most popular high-end products and what better way to represent that’s what we offer by re-releasing some of Nikes top of the line and highly rated SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit).
Q: How do people find out about these releases?
Paquette: Nike takes pride in the product they produce but something we may sometimes be underrated in is the services we provide to our consumer. Most staff are very well-educated on product knowledge and releases are part of that. We, as the faces of Nike at Guildford, inform our customers and even if we do not know, we have a very reliable and quick response team that run our social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter.
Q: Is it first-come-first-served at Nike Guildford or do you use a raffle system?
Paquette: There are different protocols depending on how highly anticipated the shoe is. If it is a shoe we think will have a lot of noise around it, or we get a lot of inquiries about, we try to do raffle because it is a bit more controllable for all accounts — mall maintenance, security etc. If it is a more general release that is not hard to find or may not get as much attention, we tend to do a line-up.
Q: Which system works better for you?
Paquette: When working in customer service, you really hope you can find a way to make everyone happy. That is near impossible these days, so whichever makes the majority happy would probably be the best way in my opinion. There are some strengths to the two formulas we use. Raffle is the fairest, whereas line-up gets the whole process with over faster and allows us to really focus on that customer at that time for the release.
Q: Which system do consumers like better?
Paquette: As mentioned before, it’s hard to keep everyone happy. The best system I have ever encountered was a pre-order system which guaranteed the shoes for individuals who pre-paid but at that time. It was a lot more controllable in terms of demand. I would say people benefit from raffle more because they are able to enter in numerous stores and not be committed to one in a line-up and they get more sleep.
Q: Has there been any altercations in line about any of the releases?
Paquette: There are many occasions where consumers are upset with you if they do not get their pair, but there is not much you can do other than wish them better luck next time and thank them for trying. There are very few times when it gets out of hand. Sometimes we get flipped the bird or spoken to in a disrespectful manner. In those situations, you just really need to hold your head up high and feed off those who are thrilled to have the shoe.
Q) Which shoe sold out the fastest?
Paquette: There have been many successful releases. Two of the top were the Jordan Bred 11 Low but our fastest seller was definitely one of the originals from Jordan’s time in his very early career, the “Chicago” Jordan Retro 1, which clearly featured the Bulls’ black, red, white!
Photo that was tweeted informing customers about the release of the Air Jordan 1 “Chicago” Courtesy of Nike Vancouver
Q: What makes these shoes special and why do people go crazy for them?
Paquette: Shoes have become a culture. It is something rappers rap about or hip hop artist sing about. Music has been an extremely important part of people’s lives and it is a way they identify themselves. Shoes have kind of become that idea. They say 90 per cent of how you feel is how you look. The fact that these shoes are so limited draws attention to them, let alone the fact that there are many celebrities and superstars that wear them on the red carpet.
For some, it’s become an investment a way to make money down the road. If you keep them as they express “on ice” or “headstock” — meaning untouched — their value does increase due to its high demand.
Lastly, for some people it brings back old memories of the shoes they wore when they were kids. It’s really just a good way to connect with consumers of all ages and really generate interest in everyone.
Q: Will there be more release launches in the future?
Paquette: There will always be new releases. They may not always generate as much hype or attention, however, because the expectations of society has increased so much. Someone will always be looking for the next breakthrough and Nike is definitely not going to give up on their innovative background.
