Every March 26th, on Air Max Day, sneakerheads around the world come together in celebration of all things Air Max. From the Air Max 1 OG, city packs, designer collabs, landing on Mars, and more, love of this sneaker line is integral to modern sneaker culture.
The passion for Air Max sneakers is uniform across the globe. But from country to country, it turns out there’s quite a bit of variation when it comes to which Air Max is most popular, and the prices they sell for. Like language and cuisine, each country has its own unique set of Air Max preferences.
We crunched the numbers for the last 12 months of sales data and looked at how Air Max sales varied across 7 different regional marketplaces: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Japan. For each country, we then determined which Air Max sneaker was the most purchased and most sold, and calculated the average price premium for the top 50 colorways.
During the last 12 months, the StockX platform has seen thousands and thousands of Air Max sales. But when it comes to picking a favorite Air Max, the answer varied considerably depending on the country. In three of our seven countries, the most copped Air Max was the AM90 Mars Landing, which ranked #1 among buyers in the USA, the UK, and Italy. The Air Max 1 Have a Nike Day was the favorite of France and the Netherlands. Surprisingly, the Air Max Plus OG Voltage Purples registered the most sales to buyers in Germany, and the Air VaporMax 95 Neon was the purchase of choice in Japan.
Both the AM90 Mars Landing and the AM1 Have a Nike Day released in March 2019, in the run-up to Air Max Day 2019, so it’s no surprise that these models topped the sales charts in multiple countries. What is surprising is that a pair of 2018 releases, the Voltage Purples and the Neons, were the #1 purchased Air Max pair in Germany and Japan, respectively.
Over the last year, three of the top five most-purchased sneakers in France were Air Max models. The AM1 Have A Nike Day was the most popular Air Max in France and was the #2 best-selling sneaker overall.
More than any other country, buyers in the Netherlands are obsessed with Air Max sneakers: 4 of the top 5 most popular sneakers in the Netherlands are Air Max models, and the AM1 Have a Nike Day is the #1 best-selling sneaker overall.
When looking at the most sold Air Maxes—that is, which sneaker was most sold by sellers in different countries—you would expect there to be some correlation with the most purchased data. However, that doesn’t hold true. In fact, the only country that has the same purchased and sold Air Max sneaker is the US, with the AM90 Mars Landing topping both lists. In every other country we looked at, the most-sold Air Max was different from the most purchased.
What we do find is that Nike x Off-White Air Max collaborations are kings of global air. All of Europe sold Virgil’s Air Max iterations in greater volume than any other Air Max. Sellers in France favored the Off-White Air Max 90 Black; sellers in the United Kingdom sold more of the white Off-White Air Max 90; in Germany and the Netherlands, the most-sold model was the Off-White Air Max 90 Desert Ore; and Italian sellers favored the Off-White Air Max 97 Menta most of all. In an interesting departure from the European countries, Japan sold more AM1 Chinese New Year Longevity than any other Air Max.
Off-Whites continue to post sky-high resale prices: the average Air Max 90 Off-White sold for 8x retail.
In Japan, the AM1 Chinese New Year Longevity wasn’t just the most-sold Air Max; it was the most-sold Nike sneaker overall.
Finally, for the top 50 Air Max colorways purchased in each country, we calculated the average price premium: that is, the percentage difference between resell price and retail price. Insofar as price premiums provide a quantitative measure for “hype,” we can compare how Air Max hype varies across different countries.
Among the seven countries we analysed, Air Max hype was highest in the US, where the typical Air Max sneaker sold for 43% above retail. The UK ran a close second, with an average price premium of 40%. The rest of the world, however, saw much lower margins for Air Max sales. The Netherlands, France, Japan, and Italy all had premiums in the range from 20-27%, while Germany had the smallest premium at 18%. The big takeaway from this set of data is that the Air Max, like the Air Force 1, is a staple shoe meant to be worn. Aside from certain hyped models like the Off-White AM90s, the typical Air Max sneaker is meant to be rocked, not flipped.
Be sure to check out more of our Air Max Day 2020 content with exclusive interviews with Jeff Staple, SOSHI, Mr. Foamer Simpson, Dave Ortiz, and Magdi Fernandes.
