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The New Balance 550 generally retails for $110, with some exclusive colorways going for $130. However, most sneaker collectors struggle to land a pair for box price. Here we attempt to unravel what makes the New Balance 550 so expensive!
Why The New Balance 550 Is So Expensive
The New Balance 550 is expensive on the aftermarket due to popularity and the resulting rarity. High demand combined with staggered releases make them fly off the virtual shelves which drives up the price.
This is the one pair I was able to get at retail.
Shop 550s on: eBay
When a sneaker is the “it” sneaker, it’s tough to get a pair. This has always been the case with popular sneakers and likely will continue to be so. So the real question isn’t necessarily why New Balance 550s are so expensive.
Figuring out why they are so popular in the first place gets closer to the root of the issue. Knowing a bit of the history of the sneaker helps. Even better, knowing the pattern of popular sneakers in general reveals the path to hype.
Why The New Balance 550 Is Popular
A combination of vintage looks and 80s-era basketball sneakers being fashionable, high profile collabs and limited availability have made the New Balance 550 an extremely popular sneaker model.
Hype is the reason the sneaker is difficult to find, or at least was from 2020-early 2022. So, where did this hype come from?
The formula is there to launch a sneaker to stardom. The 550 has followed a predictable pattern based on New Balances other successful attempts at bringing models to the forefront.
Step 1 is to either revive an old model or create a vintage-based new model and launch it in a few limited, great looking collabs. Of course, being in on the zietgiest of what is trending will help. For example, vintage 80s-era styles have been popular for the last few years. Particularly retro basketball sneakers such as the Nike Dunk.
Speaking of which, many fans of the brand view New Balance as an “alternative” to Nike hype in the context of sneaker collecting. Thus, the NB casual basketball sneaker retro is going to be in direct competition with Nike’s popular offering. It appeals to a similar niche although the vibe of the shoe is quite different. Those that feel that “everyone is rocking Dunks now” can gravitate toward something similar, yet different.
Collabs with Rich Paul and Aimé Leon Dore helped catapult the model to the limelight initially, and continued limited releases keep the sneaker highly visible. Celebrities and Tiktok fashion influencers got their hands on the limited releases, which put the model on many people’s radar.
Vintage looks being in help a lot with an old school basketball silhouette like the 550. The sneaker tends to have offwhite vintage palletes on many of its releases, which blends well with the thrifted, vintage aesthetic trending today. Especially as influencers on social media help proliferate this look.
Initially, the sneakers were tough to physically find in stores. As we near the money-machine saturation phase of the model, we are now seeing a lot more pairs release which means they are finally getting easier to find and releasing in a lot more places. While certain colors of the shoe sell out, we are still able to get certain colorways at retail, a feat that was nearly impossible when the hype for the sneaker was ramping up.
New Balance 550 Are Worth The Hype
The NB 550 is on trend as far as vintage aesthetic marketed by popular collaborations. While the sneaker is nice, it may not be for everyone.
I was able to get a pair for retail at one point, and wrote a review on the model here. I was definitely caught up in the hype when I secured that pair.
While I had been influenced by the popularity of the sneaker and tracked down a pair for retail, ultimately I wound up selling them off. I do like how the sneaker looks, but it was the fit that I found not to my liking.
The shoe isn’t uncomfortable necessarily, it just fits my foot awkwardly. I’m at a stage in my collecting where I’m not going to suffer through every popular sneaker just to have it. If I don’t think I’m going to wear the shoe a lot, or have a tough time with the fit, the odds go up that I will get rid of that shoe and not buy any more of that model. There are exceptions to this, but generally this is the case.
My personal opinion is that the sneaker is a bit on the overhyped side. Especially now, where we are reaching a saturation point. At the end of the day, the 550 has a long, narrow fit and the general releases don’t tend to have the special materials one would usually associate with the brand. The collabs of course kick everything up a notch, but the pairs most people will be able to get their hands on might prove to be underwhelming in person. At least, that is my experience.
So, if you get a pair of 550s and don’t like them as much as you thought you would, there’s no shame in getting rid of them for something you will actually wear. The shoe is only worth it if you like it. Ultimately, whether the sneaker is worth it comes down to whether it’s worth it for your purposes. If you don’t like the shoe, it doesn’t matter whether everyone else does. Unless your goal is to resell the sneaker, at which point the question isn’t what you specifically feel about the shoe, but rather what colorways and collabs are the best investment.
Where To Buy The New Balance 550
You can find NB 550s at sneaker boutiques such as Sneakersnstuff, footsites like Shoe Palace, YCMC, DTLR, Footlocker and Finishline, aftermarket sites and of course New Balance’s website.
Shop 550s on: eBay
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