If you keep up on sneaker releases then you’ve likely heard about the random guy on Instagram that bought the Air Jordan 1 ‘RE2PECT’ and instead received the Air Jordan 1 ‘Bred Toe’. How did he end up with this upcoming release instead of what he had ordered? Well, we asked someone at Eastbay to find out.
As someone that has visited Eastbay’s distribution center a couple of times and seen firsthand how the shipping and receiving end of the business works, I found it hard to believe that Jake Johnson, a Chicago native, ended up with a pair of shoes that were unlikely to be in Eastbay’s possession.
Eastbay doesn’t receive most of the upcoming Jordan and Nike products, as well as some hyped up adidas releases (such as the Yeezy line), months in advance like some may think. It usually receives the upcoming release shipments within a few days prior to the launch date. That gives employees very little time to receive, unpack, organize, and then inspect each and every item.
According to Eastbay, its shipment of the upcoming ‘Bred Toe’ Air Jordan 1 has not yet arrived at its distribution center. However, the pair Jake ordered and ultimately received was in fact fulfilled by Eastbay as we were able to confirm with the brand.
If Eastbay fulfilled the order and sent Jake his shoes then doesn’t that mean that Eastbay does have the upcoming Air Jordan 1 in stock and preparing for its January release? No.
What occurred was an accident on behalf of Jordan Brand — the shipment it sent and delivered to Eastbay had a random pair that wasn’t quite like the rest. Are there more of these random ‘Bred Toe’ Air Jordan 1s hidden throughout the Air Jordan 1 ‘RE2PECT’ supply? It’s possible, but unlikely.
Should Eastbay have checked each and every pair within the shipment it received prior to placing them on distribution shelves? Maybe. Should Jordan Brand have ensured that its orders to retail partners were filled properly prior to being sent? Definitely.
Retail chains buy from the brands wholesale then resell the product. Situations like this aren’t exactly a chicken and the egg type of scenario. We know what came first and, in this instance, whoever threw in that random pair of Air Jordan 1s in the ‘Bred Toe’ colorway into the shipment that was supposed to have been the Air Jordan 1 ‘RE2PECT’ is where this all started.
Unfortunately, in today’s online media world the retailer ends up looking like it messed up when it didn’t even know it had the shoe in its possession.
Personally, I feel that Jake got a great deal — he received a shoe with better material quality than the one he ordered and he got it months in advance without a fee.
Now, someone is posing to be Jake on eBay and “listing” his random anomaly of a purchase for the low price of $10,000 with an even more reasonable shipping fee of $243.67. Unfortunately, this is the “culture” we live in. No, not the sneaker culture. This is our human culture. On the come-up while f***ing over the next person in order to prosper.
Eh, this pretty much reveals that Eastbay doesn’t check shoes before they’re out the door if true. I thought this whole time that would’ve been standard procedure since Footlocker and such tend to double check matching shoe sizes are in the box.
Not sure how I feel about that, but I’m also sure I read something about customers getting two left/right shoes direct from Nike — so it definitely could’ve started from the manufacturer.
1. This is true.
2. That’s with any retailer.
I once worked at KD Toys and did truck days. We’d receive shipment, unload, ensure all boxed the brands sent were accounted for and then we’d bring them up to the stock room and prepare them to be put on shelves. We did not open every box of toys to ensure the brand sent us perfect products or products without defects/missing pieces. The issue with something like this, if you can even call this instance an actual issue, is that brands lack quality control. Retail spaces buy these items from the brands and then resell them to the public. When the brand messes up a product consumers often times blame the wrong company. The retailer can be wrong at times and it’s policy at nearly every retailer to ensure the customer is always happy and taken care of, but expecting a retailer to open every package of whatever they carry is really… unreasonable.
Same thing can be said for packages during shipment. Packages leave distribution centers in perfect shape. The carrier of the package responsible for delivery are the ones handling the package until delivered and bang them up. This isn’t an “if true” scenario. This is a factual statement.
Idk if you’ve ever worked at a supermarket or retailer of items before but I worked at a couple supermarkets and not one checked everything before putting on the shelves and that’s food — the assumption is that the manufacturer of the product did its job properly so people can safely eat it. What’s the track record on that?
I cannot tell you how many fucked up sneakers I have received in the mail — from all kinds of retailers! I got LeBron 11s (launch cw) with glue ALL OVER them and I called Villa and the manager said, “we got in hundreds — if not thousands — of LeBron 11s. We could never look in every box, we just don’t have time.”
And when you think about it, someone at a factory somewhere made that sneaker and it passed whatever quality check exists, whether on the factory side or Nike side.
I think as far as retailer protocol goes, they indeed won’t go out of their way to check quality. I wouldn’t drag this debate too far, but I would’ve thought flipping a box open for a quick glance wouldn’t hurt. I mean we’re talking products in the $100’s range. But yeah, that does fall on the source to get it straight in the first place.
I think it depends on the situation. In-store they are able to double check as the pair being sold is right there and each sale is a one at a time thing. For the distribution center they’re taking in 8,000 orders a day. That’s just the orders. Not counting all the incoming products coming in each day — which is a lot. I couldn’t believe how much product is brought in and sold/fulfilled each day. It was astonishing.
I wondered how this happened. Makes sense. Same thing happened coincidentally back when I think Breds dropped or something. Someone purchases Breds (or whatever) and ended up with Shattered Backboards. Wish east bay would screw my order up like that sometime.
Back in the day I believe someone received a pair of Shox VC II Lebron SVSM PEs through Eastbay
That’s fucking crazy
Pretty cool story…..I’m sure these “Easter Eggs” are intentionally sent out by Nike/Jordan to build hype in the hopes that they are actually “found/bought/shipped” per se before the actual release.
The young man that receipt that pair of tennis shoes is in fact my nephew Jake Johnson, and I know that he loves to wear air Jordan tennis shoes, yet he has not put these on his feet, although you never know if he’ll leave and put them on anytime soon , Jake is been all over the world with his weightlifting and owns 73 gold medals, maybe at his next me will see if he’ll have them With him as he goes to yet another gold medal