The hottest ticket in East London on December 8th was the super hyped Sneakerpedia launch. Tickets were like gold dust and there was a strict no sneaker no entry policy. The promo video proclaims that the site is ‘run by sneaker-heads for sneaker-heads’. While this is certainly true there is an interesting involvement from a certain Foot Locker who are ‘powering’ the site. First things first, how was the party? Well, it was as you would expect, lots of super sneaker junkies each trying to outdo each other with fresh colour-ways and exclusive editions. The drink was free flowing and I am sure there are a fair few Mojito based hangovers lurking in Shoreditch this morning. The funniest part was everyone trying to protect their footwear on the dance-floor as the breakers came out to play, I even saw someone change their sneakers to get involved in the throw down. Upstairs there were MacBook Pro’s available for people to play around with the platform and ask questions to the very helpful (and knowledgeable) assistants on hand.
The site itself is described as a ‘social space not a market place’. Users are encouraged to upload their sneaker collections to show off, educate, engage, share, etc. You can search the site by all manner of classification such as; stitching, lining, material, what celebrities are wearing, what the original colour-way of a specific Nike was, the list goes on. There are five stages to uploading a shoe which involve taking shots of your sneakers in a specific fashion to ensure they conform to the rules of the site. So while we wait for the site to be opened up to the world (its in beta at the present) what did I take away from last night? No it wasn’t a hangover, free sneakers or a crash course in body popping. My overriding thought was that this is a stroke of genius by Foot Locker. Not only have they created a very cool site that I am sure will be huge success, they have also developed a platform that will give them access to all their customer’s personal details and sneaker preferences. They will have an ongoing two-way communication channel and infinite touch-point as long as users stay active on the site. Very sneaky!
Words By Charlie Lyons
