This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Many retailers in recent years have been extremely vocal about trying to limit or stop the usage of bots and abuse of resellers. The battle is far from over and one adidas location may or may not have taken things too far with an all-new release procedure.
On February 1st, posted on the door of adidas NYC on 5th ave was a note on how the Ace 16+ PURECONTROL release would be handled:
adidas Purchase Policy
- adidas group will not sell product to any person who adidas believe intends to resell merchandise.
- The adidas Group does not allow the purchase of goods of any quantity with the intent of reselling items at an increased price.
- a reseller is classified as the following:
– A person who regularly purchases a large quantity of product from an individual store on a daily/weekly basis.
– A person who asks for a discount when purchasing a large quantity of product in a single transaction.
– A person who wishes to buy all stock in an individual article with or without a discount. - The Store Manager reserves the right to professionally inquire the intent of customer’s attempting to purchase large or frequent purchases.
- If the sale appears to be reseller related based on size, content, or frequency of purchases, the sale must be refused.
This could be a tactic to scare away resellers, but with such a vague definition of what or who a reseller is, this procedure also allows for employees to profile adidas customers which potentially could be more damaging to a brand than people buying in bulk to resell. As someone who’s had experience in retail at both the sales associate and manager position, regardless of what preventative measures are put in place, resellers will learn creative ways to abide by a store’s rules and continue to buy in bulk. Stay tuned to see if adidas will continue this release method for future drops.
Do you think adidas went too far by posting this purchase policy aimed toward resellers? Or do you think this is a great thing to do? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
