Nike is a corporate giant, no doubt about that. Everything they do is all about the grand scheme of things: rockstar-like and oftentimes bordering on excess.
Keep in mind that Nike churns out A LOT of product, there will always be a number of them that don’t make the cut or end up in the trash. Perfection is always a part of the Swoosh criteria and basically, it’s not possible to please everyone–hence their 60-day return policy. The outcome is an excessive number of products just waiting to rot in the backroom. This impacts the carbon footprint of athletic products greatly as they end up wasted.
Enter the Nike Refurbished program: a solution that Nike just rolled out to the public. They aim to solve the problem by offering these neglected but perfectly fine products for a lower price. They’ve categorized it into 3 levels:
Like New (worn for a day or two), Gently Worn (worn for a little longer), and Cosmetically Flawed (small error during manufacturing).
The like new/gently worn goods are restored in-house by the Nike team and then given a grade- The pricing depends product type and grade condition. The Cosmetically Flawed products is really nothing new with sneakerheads and outlet raiders as they are products that may not fit the retail scenario due to stitches and misaligned logos.
Last but not least are returned products that are not fit for Nike Refurbished–these are the ones that end up being recycled for future use.
Primarily, Nike plans to roll the Refurbished program at 15 outlets including Factory Outlets, Clearance Stores, and Community Stores. The best thing about it is that Nike guarantees that all products purchased from Nike Refurbished have a 60-day return policy. Overall, a win-win for the consumer and the brand as well.
We just hope resellers won’t flip stuff they buy from the program as it’s going to be shameful–an all time low really if that does happen.
Expect some grails to appear from time to time, remember the Air Jordan 1 Banned from 2011? For some reason, those are outlet sneakers…just saying!
But what’s the purpose of this move really? Why just now? Let’s face it: Nike is not a generally earth friendly company–why the move? We cannot really pinpoint why, but we’d like to give them a round of applause for this initiative. Consumer and earth friendly efforts? We’re up for it!
Speaking of the almighty Swoosh, here’s hands down one of the best Air Maxes that Nike will put out again and again!
Source: Sneakernews
