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Yeezy shoes: How to beat the odds and land a pair of Kanye West's famous sneakers

People who've managed it share their tips

Rachel Hosie
Wednesday 23 November 2016 14:57 GMT
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Kanye West performs during his Yeezy Season 3 show earlier this year
Kanye West performs during his Yeezy Season 3 show earlier this year

Kanye West’s Yeezy trainers are seemingly as elusive as tickets to The Cursed Child, and attempting to get your hands - well, feet - on a pair has resulted in heartbreak for many people time and time again.

According to West, just 40,000 pairs are released each drop, and with 75-125,000 people hoping to nab a pair, that puts your chances at about 0.25 per cent.

Every time a new batch of Yeezys is released, Twitter is awash with tales of disappointment from fans desperate for a pair of their own, only to fail, many not for the first time.

But despite this, there are people who defy the incredible odds and strut around smugly sporting their Yeezys (or so one would imagine, for they are so rare to see), so just how did they do it?

According to Riley Tengler, founder of ResellCartel.com, the most important factor is to be prepared: do your research, make a list of all the different websites selling the shoes, know the release schedule.

The latest Yeezys

With that all done, you need to be ready to buy - it’s not enough simply to have your payment card out, have the details stored on your computer so you can simply paste them in. Make sure you’re signed into each website too, so as not to waste any time.

Another good option is to go through Adidas, with quite a lot of people seeming to be successful that way, according to Twitter. Rather than simply being first come, first served, an algorithm randomly picks people from a queue - just don’t make the error of refreshing the page.

If you really want to increase your chances, you can actually pay a service - whilst it’ll cost more than if you were to get Yeezys at their retail price, it’s less than they tend to go at resale.

According to 35-year-old Mike Dee from Queens, paying a bot is the only way to ensure success. “You can buy a bot from @njsneaks and do it on your own, or pay someone if you don't know much about computers,” Dee told Racked, after using a bot to successfully buy two pairs of Yeezys.

And for some people, it has just come down to luck and being online at the right time: after seeing a retailer tweet a link, Brandon Zaboklicki managed to buy himself a pair of the elusive trainers. His advice? "Lots of prayer, also throw a fit on social media. That might work."

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