Turning SNKRS into a Dopamine Site Could Reverse Nike's Biggest L

Nike’s struggles these past few years are well-documented. After getting ousted from the S&P 100 and ghosted by stars like Mbappé, who are making previously incomprehensible moves from the biggest behemoth in sportswear to tiny upstarts like On, it’s fair to say the JustDoIt has hit the fan. On Nike’s latest earnings call, CEO Elliott Hill detailed how the next few years will feature more layoffs and fewer Jordan retros as the brand tries to stop the bleeding.

But I think there is a solution that’s far more simple. You see, Nike’s most popular product isn’t even a physical item. You can’t wear it, resell it, or even add it to the collection overflowing from your closet. Despite its tangibly challenged nature, this product has arguably one of the strongest emotional connections a brand can establish with its customer.

It’s the L.

The most frustrating yet unifying thing Nike distributes, delivering millions every week. The dejected feeling you get when the L arrives, where seemingly all of the air leaves your body, only to be replaced with despair. You eat your L privately in the corner, watching as the select few wave their W for all to see on social, basically laughing at you for ever thinking you had a shot.

But that L doesn’t turn you away from Nike. No, it’s quite the opposite. Losing a raffle makes you even more determined to win the next one, chasing a W on some shoe you didn’t even want but now need to score. You’re never going to wear that thing, and then it ends up on StockX or eBay for below retail because nobody else wants to wear it, either. That’s probably why you scored your only W of the year so far in the first place. Then, it hurts Nike. All of these shoes sitting on store shelves and going for $50 under retail on secondary markets. Now, everyone’s got an L.

Nike can turn the ship around by simply not giving away its most popular product for free. Let’s commoditize the L, harness that deep emotional reaction and give sneakerheads another option that doesn’t feel so defeating.

It started over in South Korea but quickly spread everywhere, saving people tons of money and satisfying a serious craving. It’s called a Dopamine Site, and it acts like a regular online shopping experience, letting you browse, add to your cart, check out, and track shipping, just like you do every day. The only difference is that it doesn’t cost anything and no product is ever delivered. It’s all an elaborate game to let you get the retail therapy itch out of your system without actually breaking the bank.

There’s FakeHaul, which simulates a Temu shopping spree, and Food Never Comes, a faux food delivery app that lets you search endlessly for the perfect meal and then, instead of delivering it, tells you how many calories you didn’t consume by only pretend ordering that smash burger and truffle fries.

The jury is out on whether Dopamine Sites are actually effective in curbing spending habits, but their ability to make you feel good as you shop till you drop is unquestioned. Who doesn’t love piling products sky high in the digital cart, just to come back down to earth when you see the actual cost on the checkout screen?

But Nike has been on this wave, dishing out immense dopamine every Saturday on SNKRS to those who get an elusive W on the raffles. One could argue the three best feelings in the sneaker game are winning the raffle, unboxing the sneakers, and wearing them for the first time–in that order.

So, if winning the raffle and sharing the ‘GOT EM’ graphic on Sneaker Twitter is the peak feeling of the entire process, why not let the L-holders… upgrade? When a SNKRS shopper loses the raffle, give them the option of paying five bucks for the dopamine drop experience, offering a download of all the necessary social assets for feeling (and flexing) like you actually won: GOT EM, tracking info, and finally, the fake e-mail from the made-up shipping company that the package got lost in the mail, just in case anyone wonders why you never posted a fit pic in the pair down the road. Shoot, with the way AR technology is nowadays, let people put pretend digital kicks on their feet with SNKRS Fit Filter.

I know, it sounds crazy. But this wouldn’t even be the first time Nike charged real money for a fake product. Remember NFTs? The actual sneaker has always just been icing on the cake that’s expensive to make. A large portion of sneakerheads would be happy with saving hundreds of dollars and the rest of Sneaker Twitter thinking they won the raffle. Win-win from what used to be a loss.

When Travis Scott and fragment linked up on the Air Jordan 1 Low last year, a record 4.4 million people put in raffle entries. Even at the highest production output, that’s millions of Ls going out with nothing to show but frustration for the customer. If even 10% of 4 million L holders upgrade to the dopamine drop at $5, that’s $2 million in additional revenue with no extra physical production required. I honestly think even more than 10% would pay for the pics, there’s a SKR born every minute.

The only problem that could arise with the new SNKRS SKRS dopamine drops is that they become too popular, in which case Nike could stop offering the upgrade option to all L holders and instead employ some sort of secondary raffle situation where once you lose the actual sneaker raffle and opt-in to the L upgrade, you get put into another raffle to see if you get lucky and can download the pretend W.

Oof, imagine losing out on the real shoes, and then the fake ones on top of it. Maybe we introduce an upgraded L for those people, maybe give them the physical shoes or something, I don't know.

Drew London

Drew oversees content at Sole Retriever and hates writing in the 3rd person soooo I'm going to stop. Ran The Hundreds Blog in LA for a long time before moving back east to make cool commercials and funny tweets at [insert big agency]. Now I'm doing what I really love: talking sneakers, streetwear, and everything in between. Email me at drew@soleretriever.com with scoops and size 13 heat.