Earlier this month, when we got the jobs report for the month of May, we learned the U.S. economy added jobs in fields like health care and hospitality. Now, it’s time for another jobs report … of sorts. We can call it the odd jobs report.
Our series, “What’s That Like,” gives us a taste of the strange and unusual jobs that exist in our economy. The latest installment of our series is all about reselling sneakers.
Yuanrun Zheng, who goes by Z, is a full-time sneaker broker with an online storefront and two physical locations — one in Nashville, Tennessee, and one in Louisville, Kentucky.
This line of work first caught Zheng’s attention as a way to get new kicks for free. “When I was selling shoes, if I sold two or three pairs of [Air] Jordans, I got my own pair for free from the profit,” Zheng told Marketplace.
Call it sneakerhead math, if you will. Eventually, buying and reselling sneakers became Zheng’s career. More than a decade later, he said he still loves the work.
“If you were to tell me that I will still be reselling sneakers in year 15 of this enterprise, I would say that you're crazy, because I figure at this age, I would be just working a corporate job somewhere 9 to 5,” he said.
Want to walk a mile in a sneaker reseller’s shoes? Click the audio player above for more.
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