 So you just got into the sneaker game and you're trying to hustle and flip a couple kicks, but you don't know how to get the most value out of each shoe. In today's video, I'm gonna be breaking down everything that you need to know and all the tips and tricks that I have learned over the past 15 years to help you take your game to the next level. And if you didn't know by now, my name is DJ and this is The DNA Show. On this channel, I love talking about sneakers and especially giving you guys tips and trick videos like this, so if you haven't already, consider subscribing and joining the fam. We're on the road to a million subscribers and you could be the next one to get us there. Now before we dive into the sneakers and break down how we can increase the values, we gotta talk about all the things that come along with the shoes that can also increase the values. So let's start with the boxes first. Now there's a couple different types of sneaker heads and you got people like me who like to display my sneaker collection because I'm a collector, but sometimes you may decide that you wanna sell some shoes or you don't like those shoes anymore and you wanna get rid of them and you wanna be able to get that top dollar so you can then take that money and buy another pair of sneakers that you want or use the money for a down payment on a house or something that you need for an investment. So even though you see all my sneakers in the display cases, I'll always make sure that I keep the boxes. The reason why it is so important to keep the boxes is those also go with the value of the shoe. Prime example, if you were planning on selling a sneaker on StockX, well now you can't sell the shoe on StockX because you need all the original items that come with it and that includes the box. So then you're gonna have to go to another platform like Goat or a different place, but you're gonna have to slightly decrease the value because you're missing that box and when it comes to collectors, we always wanna have everything that comes along with the shoe. So before we get into talking about retro cards, laces, lace locks, different things like that, we need to go over one more thing when it comes to the shoe boxes. Sometimes you'll see people selling a pair of shoes and they'll have a replacement box, which is cool, but it's still not the original box and that's what people want. So yes, that might be able to get you extra five or 10 bucks, but if you had the OG box, depending on the shoe, that could vary anywhere from 20 to $100. So I know it may not seem very important to most people but when it comes to collectors and people that really, really care about sneakers, trust me when I tell you, keeping the box in good condition and having the OG box is very, very important. So now that you know that, let's talk about the accessories that come along with the shoe as well. So typically when you open up a box of shoes, it just has the natural white paper that comes along with it. But for example, if it was a Travis Scott collab or a different type of collaboration, they always put special paper inside of the box as well. That's another thing that a lot of people really like. So that is considered kind of like an accessory, a part of the packaging and something that is very important because everybody knows the pink Travis Scott paper is very, very iconic with the all over print when you get a pair of Travis Scott Air Jordan ones. So yes, you could say, oh, I kept the box in good condition, but I threw away the paper. So let's say the sneakers were for $1,000, right? And it comes with all these different things and it's got the trinkets and the special paper in the box. If it's missing the paper or something like that, well now somebody's gonna not want to value it at that top market price, simply because it's missing something along those lines that it naturally comes with if you were to purchase it for retail from the store. And because of that, now somebody might be knocking that shoe down a couple bucks, 20 or 30 or 50 bucks depending on what's missing and maybe the paper was even more special depending on the collaboration. So basically what I'm telling you is all those little things definitely add up. So hopefully by now you're kind of getting a gist of where I'm going with this. For example, right here, you have one, two, three, four pair of laces that come with the reverse Mocha Air Jordan one Travis Scott collaboration. So if I were to rip these off and I ended up putting them somewhere else, especially because these are wax laces and these are more expensive laces than the normal laces that come with your regular retro. Now you see what I'm saying? There's a more premium addition to the shoe. If I rip those off and it's missing laces and different stuff like that, that could potentially devalue the sneaker because it doesn't have OG all, which means original everything. Another pro tip that I have seen done over the years and I actually used to do it back in the day but we don't really have the opportunity anymore because we don't see retro cards. Actually people used to take the retro cards and put them in Ziploc bags. So that way they were in pristine condition and they wouldn't get anything messed up on them or scratched or nicked on the corners or something like that. And almost kind of treated them like Pokemon cards but they just put the retro cards inside of there. So that's something to think about. I know some people may say that's overboard but trust me when I tell you if you ask any OG sneaker head, I'll guarantee you you're gonna see people in the comment section that say they either have done it before or they have seen people do it before. So now that we've gone over the general basis of just protecting the box and all the accessories and all the trinkets that come along with the shoe for the display aspect and the packaging, now let's talk about the sneakers and how we can increase the value of those because there are a bunch of different ways. First things first, I need a lot of people to understand you can definitely make a lot of money in the used sneaker industry. You can find sneakers that are dirty, clean them up and then be able to resell them for a good amount of money as well. Prime example, if you were to purchase a home and you knew it was a fixer upper and you needed to put money into it to remodel it and then it was worth more money and now you're able to sell it for even a higher ticket, that's essentially the same thing as a pair of sneakers. If you buy a used pair of shoes and you clean them up and put that little bit of elbow grease into it, maybe get some special shoe cleaners or something like that. Me personally, I like to use pink miracle shoe cleaner but once you have done those things and cleaned up the shoe, now you can actually increase the value of the sneaker because not everybody wants to buy dirty shoes. So when it comes to cleaning your shoes, like I said earlier, I like to use the pink miracle cleaning solution. I think this stuff works really, really great. I've been using it for years. You guys have seen me use it on my channel and previous cleaning videos and everything like that. But whenever I need to do some quick spring cleaning or whatever it is for my sneakers, I definitely use this a lot. So if you guys want to check it out as well, I made sure I had a link for you guys down below in the description and we got a discount code for you. Use the discount code DNASHOW and that'll get you an additional 15% off your orders as well. So like I said, when it comes to that and a cleaning aspect of the shoes, you want to clean the outsole, you want to clean the uppers and you definitely want to clean the insoles and the sock liners and everything like that. So I've talked about it in previous videos. If you have an animal and different things, you definitely want to make sure there's no fur or anything on the inside of the sock liner because that can easily devalue the shoe a lot. Nine times out of 10, people are not going to be happy when they buy a shoe and they find out it has all that on the inside of the shoe. They're going to probably not want to buy sneakers from you again or ask for a heavy discount or maybe even a refund. So one thing that I love to do when I'm cleaning the bottom of the shoes, I always want to make sure that I'm giving it the best scrub that I can to try to make the shoe. Not obviously it's not going to look dead stock but it really, really clean on the bottom. And people say, why does it matter? It's a huge shoe. Who cares? The bottom should be dirty. You walk on it, right? I get that. But at the same time, it all comes to presentation. When the person picks up the shoe and they're inspecting it and they're looking at it and all the aspects on the shoe, they want to feel like the shoe has been lightly worn and not like it's just been ran through and you don't really care about it and all that stuff and it's like a beater to you. No, no, no. You want to clean it up. Even if it is kind of a beater to you, that's fine. Trust me when I tell you, once you clean that shoe up, you're going to be able to charge more money. And when it comes to the upper, even if it's different materials, obviously you want to understand the materials and intricacies and all that stuff. But one thing that I do love about Pemerico as well, it actually just cleans everything that I need, all the different surfaces. So it makes my life a lot simpler and I don't have to worry about all that extra stuff buying a bunch of different products. Now the next pro tip is going to be stuffing the sneaker. Why is it important to stuff the shoe? I'm going to tell you in a second. When you get ready to dead stock lace the shoes, which means you want to make it look like it's factory lace, like the sneakers brand new and never been worn before, even though we know that the shoe has been worn before and you're going to tell the buyer that the shoe has been worn before, you just want to give it the proper presentation when you're taking photos. So now when you're taking photos, you need to understand the reason why you stuff the shoe is sometimes when you worn the shoe before, depending on the materials or whatever, the shoe could kind of be flimsy in the toe box and it's kind of flattened in that area. But once you stuff it, it'll kind of fill out the shoe and give it that shape back that you need and make those images look really good and have that good presentation like we were talking about earlier. So now it's crazy when you say it, I know, but if you stuff the shoes in dead stock lace them, you could probably increase the value of their shoes, especially with a good picture by 20 to 50, sometimes even a hundred or $200 depending on the value of the shoe. So yeah, if it's a cheap shoe and it's a $200 shoe, you might be able to increase it by 20 bucks. But if it's like a thousand dollar shoe and it's reselling for like 1800, but it's a used version, so it's kind of around that thousand dollar mark and you bought it for like 700 and you cleaned it up. Now, by taking good images, cleaning up the shoe, filling out the toe box, dead stock lace in the sneaker, now you can get that thousand, 1100, $1,200 because of those little things. So trust me when I tell you, it works. So hopefully this was a good crash course for the beginners just getting started into the game. And again, like I said earlier, if you ever wanna check out Pink Miracle, I've been using them for a long time. The discount code is gonna be down below in the description, 15% off for all your orders. Make sure you check out their website. Trust me, you're gonna love it. I appreciate you guys as always. I see you in another one. All right, y'all, peace. Yo, if you enjoyed this video and wanna grow your collection or make extra money on the side, I built a VIP mastermind that will teach you everything that I've learned about growing my sneaker collection over the past 15 years. This will also give you access to the DNA fam in my VIP community where we talk about investing outside of sneakers. And don't worry, if you don't plan on joining the VIP community, it's okay. I also set up a private DNA fam community that gives you access to all the behind the scenes looks from the studio and multiple chances to win free sneakers and gear from weekly and monthly challenges. So all you need to do is click on the link down below in the description or the first link pinned in the comment section. That will get you set up and into the community. I'm excited to see you guys on the inside. Yo, if you made it to the end of this video, drop a comment down below and let me know what was the last pair of sneakers that you flipped.