StockX: The Stock Market of Things
Founded in 2015 by Dan Gilbert, Josh Luber, and Greg Schwartz, StockX was an online platform where users could buy and sell unworn luxury and limited-edition sneakers. Sneaker resale prices often fluctuated over time based on supply and demand, creating a robust secondary market that bore similarities to the stock market. Inspired by these similarities, StockX’s co-founders created a secondary platform that tracked sneaker resale prices over time and that emphasized authenticity, anonymity, and transparency. In 2017, StockX began to experiment with ways to expand from the secondary market into the primary market, using a new type of online auction known as an initial product offering (IPO). Based on the results of its first IPOs, was StockX on the right track with its strategy to expand into the primary market?
Keywords: Markets; Auctions; Bids and Bidding; Demand and Consumers; Consumer Behavior; Data and Data Sets; Market Design; Market Platforms; Two-Sided Platforms; Multi-Sided Platforms; Market Transactions; Marketplace Matching; Supply and Industry; Analysis; Price; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Fashion Industry; North and Central America; United States; Michigan; Detroit;
Citation:
Farronato, Chiara, John J. Horton, Annelena Lobb, and Julia Kelley. "StockX: The Stock Market of Things." Harvard Business School Case 620-062, February 2020. View Details