Houston-based startup Tradeblock is delivering on its promise to ensure sneakerheads can have a more frictionless experience.
Introducing A New Feature
Public Offers: Tradeblock is introducing the launch of the platform’s newest feature, Public Offers, AfroTech has learned exclusively.
This feature — which plans to disrupt the $30 billion sneaker resale category — is timely as the app has seen an exponential uptick in shoes offered through its platform.
With more shoes at reach, members will now have a chance to trade without the tediousness of negotiations.
According to information provided to AfroTech, the process is “hassle-free” and members can select which shoes they want and are willing to trade without having to vet for a specific collector to send their request.
After, the offer will be shared publicly — so members who meet the requirement can accept it immediately.
“Public Offers shift that paradigm from every offer being private to giving you the ability to create a Public Offer, which is one to many. Public Offers give you the ability to say ‘Look, I have a shoe I want and I don’t have a preference on who I do that trade with.’ So, rather than me sending that same trade to five, 10, or 20 people, I just post it once and all 700 of those people get notified. Not only does that widen the aperture significantly and make my trade available to a lot more people who might accept, but it also creates a little bit of healthy competition,” Mbiyimoh Ghogomu, Tradeblock’s CEO.
The Mission
Although there’s healthy competition involved, the feature aims to keep sneaker lovers fulfilled while addressing the need for accessibility within the market. Oftentimes, collectors have to compete with bots or outlandish resale prices for a chance to snag their shoe of interest. However, that’s what Mbiyimoh and his co-founders — Tony Malveaux and Darren Smith — hope to alleviate.
“We just believe super strongly [that] your ability to participate in this culture shouldn’t be tied to your personal wealth,” Mbiyimoh explained.
Saving money: Tradeblock welcomes everyone to their social marketplace and requires a service fee. By doing so, members can trade without spending liquid cash.
This is important as the market is oversaturated with sellers trying to monopolize, causing resell prices to skyrocket as much as 50 percent over the market value. However, Tradeblock members don’t have to experience that reality as they will only have to be concerned with the subscription fee and shipping.
“It’s gotten increasingly hard to acquire shoes for retail,” Mbiyimoh told AfroTech. “With the kind of emergence and blowing up of StockXs and GOATs of the world, there are just a ton of folks who have entered the space largely to try to see if they can make a buck by buying the shoe at retail and reselling it for 30, 40 — however many percent or dollars above what they bought it for. We just felt strongly that there are a ton of collectors out there who even though they might have a lot of shoes, really didn’t have the money to responsibly purchase that and we said, ‘Hey, what if we gave people the ability to leverage the value of their existing collection as opposed to always having to spend cash.'”
For more information surrounding the roll-out of Public Offers, click here.
