In front of Cool Kicks, a sneaker boutique on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, Jonathan Lindsey reclined in a lawn chair, hoodie drawn snug over a custom fitted cap. About 100 people waited in a line behind him, stretching around the corner.
Mr. Lindsey, 28, said there were around 15 people ahead of him when he arrived at 9 p.m.
cheap uggs Thursday — 12 hours before the store would open. But he paid $60 dollars to move up to second. Like most of the people near the front of the line, he was here not for personal shopping, but for business.
So the Gray Zebra Yeezy Boosts he was there to buy would never grace Mr. Lindsey’s feet. Instead, he had sold the pair in advance to a woman who had driven by earlier in a Mercedes, offering him $550 dollars for a pair that would cost him $320.
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“She had her son on FaceTime,” Mr. Lindsey recalled. “She’s like, ‘His birthday is tomorrow, and he wants the shoes.’ They’re sold. Baby boy’s birthday. They’re sold.”
Though patrons would be limited to buying just one pair each — with some pairs marked down to just a dollar, only one of the first 15 people in line at Cool Kicks was planning on keeping his purchase. The rest — mostly teenagers, and all male but one — would be immediately relisting their new rare sneakers on the secondary market, where some pairs fetch more than $1,000.
Not far away, on Fairfax Avenue, a short line formed outside Dope Couture, a streetwear store that was offering buy-one, get-one-free deals the next morning.