But Supreme appears to have finally triumphed when, earlier this year, the brand migrated its webstore to ubiquitous e-commerce platform Shopify, which touts strong bot protection services. These days, according to the team behind bot service Supercop, which claimed to be “ranked #1” among all Supreme bots when reached via email earlier this week, “there’s significantly less demand” for their services. “Supreme,” they continued, “specifically has made it a bit more challenging than just a regular Shopify store.”
According to Supercop, Supreme’s best defense hasn’t just been technological. “People are much less likely to impulse buy a bot now that Supreme has sold out and is producing much larger quantities of goods,” the company said in its statement.
Supercop is speculating—nobody really knows how much of anything Supreme makes. But it stands to reason that, in an effort to refocus on their core customer, Supreme could be making more of certain garments, especially now that they can draw on VF’s supply chain expertise (the company also owns The North Face, Dickies, Vans, and Timberland). A Supreme representative declined to comment.
As Supreme expands into new markets like China (via a dedicated shop at Dover Street Market Beijing, which opened in November), the brand is certainly selling more box logo-emblazoned gear overall than ever before. According to VF, Supreme revenues hit $561.5 million for the year ending in March 2022; VF had been expecting revenues of $500 million. In 2017, that number was around $200 million.
In another sign that Supreme is entering a new period of normalcy, this surge in sales has coincided with an apparent dip in the brand’s collectibility. By at least one metric, the value of Supreme goods on the secondary market, while still inflated, is trending closer to its actual value. According to Cynthia Lee, VP of Merchandising at major resale player StockX, the average price premium of Supreme apparel and accessories sold on the site fell from 67% in 2020 to 57% in 2022, while overall sales volume held steady.
If Steiner’s experience is any indication, other people who helped shape the hype-driven secondary market have likely left the game now that Supreme has come down to earth.
“I think it’s natural,” said Steiner, who told me he has noticed a sense of fatigue among the kinds of guys who probably own superfan collectibles like Supreme nunchucks. “I mean, even some of the biggest collectors that I’m friends with, like—it’s a real thing. You’re talking about a brand that releases something on the same day at the same time every week.”
Steiner, who now works for the Brooklyn-based art and fashion collective MSCHF, has moved on, too—the last Supreme item he bought was from a Kaws collaboration in 2021. “When does it become corny to have, you know, my Supreme fire extinguisher, my silverware, my mug?” he said.
Still, just before 11:00 AM on a recent Thursday morning, the scene outside Supreme’s Bowery store was little different than it has been in the past. The air was chilly, and about 50 people waited patiently in a line that stretched down the length of the store as tattooed Supreme employees loaded cardboard boxes full of clothes through the front doors. The novelty product of the day was a Supreme x Tamagotchi toy.
As the store opened for business, I struck up a conversation with a student named Jordan as he joined the back of the line. Jordan, who was wearing a Bape hoodie, said he didn’t want the Tamagotchi—he was there, on his fourth trip in recent years, to thumb through the racks. “I just want to check out the drop and see what’s in store,” he said. Didn’t he know, I asked, that he could buy basically whatever he wanted online? “Yeah,” he replied. “But it’s cool to be able to hold the stuff in your hands,” Jordan said, “as opposed to buying it online.” For a certain kind of Supreme customer, some things will never change.
Samuel Hine
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