*Edit: Whether or not he intentionally took on a short position, the end result is that the TS releases worked themselves out so that he effectively put himself into a crippling short position. He simply because he couldn't afford to buy any TS releases since resell had gone too far up to cover any orders in any capacity. Obviously his business model is not to be short on anything, because being short would open the business to be killed by any of general release during these 10 years. Someone else speculated the TS Frags being the straw that broke the camels back; this is how that might have happened.
See break down below.
My hypothesis
Let's say Joe preordered 10 pairs of TS1 lows for $500 ea. On that purchase Zadeh now has $5000 cash. We're going with this shoe as an example because that's what your question is seeking.
Reality
Zadeh let Joe preorder those 10 pairs as early as Jan 2019 for $400/pair. Then $800/pair. If Joe were a real person, he bought 10 pairs for a total of $4000. Zadeh now has a liability of $4000 on the books, or $4000 on hand to buy product on StockX.
My hypothesis cont.
Sometime 6 months later, Zadeh hopes that the TS1 low drops below $500 but he's SOL cos the fiends gobble up the TS1 lows from resell markets and even his plugs don't have any spare pairs. He waits and waits but they settle on $2K on resell. What are his options then?
Reality:
Typically after official release, shoe resell prices drop from initial sales on recorded StockX data. I hypothesized 6 months later (arbitrarily said 6 months btw), the resell price of a shoe may provided a window to purchase shoe at a price near his estimated preorder price, eg ~$500 in the example.
Using real StockX data, if you add 6 months to the preorder date of Jan 2019, that puts you to June 2019, one month after official retail release. The price in that time went from the bottoms of $921 to ~$1500 (June 2019 stockx price in my size).
So if he let Joe preorder those 10 pairs @ $400/ea on Jan 2019, then Zadeh has $4000 cash to buy - not enough to even profit, that's under breakeven after fees shipping etc.
If he bought any time within the timeframe of
6 months after official release:
Math in steps:
- $4000 cash in hand from Joe's 10 pair preorder
- Because Zadeh never had any on hand, he has to market buy these on StockX. Lowest market price around May 30, 2019 in my size is ~$974.
- If Zadeh buys those 10 pairs of Joe at $974, Zadeh now has a loss of:
- $4000 - ($9740) = - $5740
- if Joe had preordered at $800, Zadeh still down $1740
If he bought at the lowest price anytime
6 months prior to official release of May 11, 2019:
- $4000 cash in hand from Joe's 10 pair preorder
- Lowest price prior to official retail release was $921 in my size, on May 6, 2019
- If Zadeh buys those 10 pairs at $921, Zadeh now has a loss of:
- $4000 - ($9210) = -$5210
- if Joe had preordered at $800 instead, Zadeh still down $1210
No matter how you slice it, his short position blew up because the shoe didn't go down on resell. He under priced (UNDERESTIMATED FUTURE RESELL PRICES), AND oversold (UNDERESTIMATED FUTURE DEMAND) all TS releases. Take this one single buyer, now multiply that by number of buyers, multiply that by number of shoes per order, and then multiple by the number of TS Jordan releases (4: OG TS1, OG TS1 Low, TS Frag High, TS Frag Low).
That's easily how he is under millions in liability, he let the kids have at it at the froyo machine by ordering too much. When it came time to fulfill, ain't no way he going to market buy to fulfill
ALL TS orders.
Let me know if you need me to clarify anything.