Some of the biggest problems that have plagued the sneaker industry for years has been the rise of counterfeit goods, and the countless instances of limited sneakers being backdoored. If you’ve been collecting for some time, you’ve definitely run into one of these two problems.
Whenever we’ve paid resale for a hyped pair of kicks, one of the biggest things that sits in the back of our mind is the worry of whether or not what we’ve just bought, is authentic. There is no worse feeling then spending a lot of money on a pair of sneakers you really wanted, only to find out that you’ve been scammed with a pair of counterfeit/fake sneakers.
The other problem, and equally as frustrating is the issue of backdooring. We’ve all seen it and experienced it. You’ve spent countless hours entering raffles at various retailers, only to see pairs popping up on locally, before the shoe is even out.
This year, that all changes. We can confirm through sources that Nike is set to introduce RFID & QR Code to their shoes. Each pair of Nike sneakers is going to come with a unique RFID that is trackable by the brand.
- RFID: Ensuring Nike is delivering the right product, to the right place at the right time
- QR Codes: Authentic Nike product validated at the point of sale
Nike will be able to see the entire movement of each pair of sneakers from supply chain, to product creation all the way to point of sale. What does this mean? They will be able to see the inventory of every pair of sneakers and where they are within the system – almost like a GPS tracker. Nike will be able to visually see where the shoes are and how they were processed in each retailer. The QR code feature will allow customers to authenticate each pair of sneakers. Scanning the QR code will populate information that can, in real time, show whether the sneaker is real or fake.
This is an incredibly huge endeavour for Nike, and it will be an absolute game changer for the brand and for the industry. This is all done in effort to ensure that their highly coveted products end up in the right hands of the right consumers, and that we aren’t being scammed out of our money by the counterfeit industry. The initiative is set to launch for Fall 2019, so be on the look out for this new and exciting development.