StockX Is Letting Select Sellers Ship Directly to Buyers …

StockX is launching a new program on Thursday that will allow a small number of pre-selected “Verified Sellers” to ship the items they sell straight to their buyers, allowing for quicker order delivery times. Items sold by Verified Sellers via StockX’s express ship option won’t be routed through the resale platform’s authentication centers—instead, they’ll go straight from seller to buyer.

“We have more than 35 million people on the platform every month,” StockX CEO Greg Schwartz tells Complex. “And what we find is that they want product fast, they want access to product, and that’s what they’re optimizing for.”

Schwartz says that a direct shipping feature has been a big ask from volume resellers on StockX. The Verified Seller program is being piloted through the top tier of those resellers—at launch, products available through the quicker option will make up less than one percent of StockX’s overall volume.

“Our core verification that we do across our verification centers is still going to be the bulk of our business for the foreseeable future,” Schwartz says.

StockX says that it will enforce strict policies and standards for users in its Verified Seller program, including background checks, regular audits, and specific training on product listing guidelines. In selecting the first Verified Sellers, the company filtered out users who didn’t meet its standards of timely shipping and reliability.

How will the Verified Seller program look from the buyers’ side? Items sold through the program will be available through StockX’s express ship option, which also consists of pre-authenticated “flex” items that are housed at StockX authentication centers and ready to be shipped. (StockX marks express ship products with a rocket icon on its app and website.) After checkout, express ship buyers will be notified whether the item they purchased will ship directly from a StockX Verified Seller or come from one of StockX’s verification centers.

The process will remain anonymous as it’s always been—buyers still won’t know the identity of the seller they’re buying from.

Items sold through Verified Sellers do not automatically cost more—the sellers still set the prices and the fees are the same—but might generally come at a premium. Schwartz says that sellers will often raise prices on express items knowing that buyers are willing to pay more to get them faster.

The expectation from StockX is that the direct buyer-to-seller trades in the Verified Seller program will take three to six business days—that’s around half the time of an average StockX order, and on par with timing for orders on pre-authenticated items held at StockX facilities.

The Verified Seller program removes the most time-consuming aspect of getting shoes from StockX. If you’ve ordered anything from the platform, you know how long the wait can be while your item makes its way from the seller to an authentication center to you. But it also removes a step from the third-party verification and middlemanning that StockX’s business was built on.

Even if the Verified Seller option gets people their sneakers faster, it comes with some risk for StockX, which is currently battling a lawsuit from Nike that’s stoked fears about the prevalence of fake sneakers on the platform. Could one less step in the verification process mean that more fakes are passed off as legitimate and sold on StockX?

“It shouldn’t,” Schwartz says. “If we get this right, it shouldn’t. And we’re going to be auditing to make sure that’s the case.”

Schwartz argues that some buyers might be more inclined to shop with sellers that StockX has invested in and vetted as its most reliable. StockX has met with the individual sellers and even asked questions about their supply sources.

And, the CEO says, if StockX makes a mistake in facilitating the sale of an item that it shouldn’t have, through the Verified Seller program or otherwise, it will make it right. 

“It’s on us obviously to continue doing everything we can to get the customer trust challenge right,” Schwartz says. “And we have not been perfect, but we invest a lot of time and energy into doing it well, and we’re constantly evolving that, and we’re putting our name and reputation on the line every day when we do that work.”