Guide · ·
The models where comparing shops is actually worth your time
A small group of shoes is carried by twenty-odd shops at once, in hundreds of colourways. Those are the ones where five minutes of comparing changes what you pay. For most of the catalogue it changes nothing, and we would rather say so.
Comparison only has something to work with when several shops hold the same thing. A limited pair sitting at one retailer has one price, and that price is the price. The value is concentrated in the models everybody stocks: the terrace classics, the canvas staples, the big running families and the football boots.
Breadth is what creates the gap
A model that exists in hundreds of colourways is being cleared somewhere at any given moment. One shop is finishing with last season's colour while another has just taken delivery of this season's, and they are the same shoe to anyone who is not counting stitching. That is the gap worth finding, and it only exists where the model is broad enough for shops to be at different points in its life at the same time.
The second thing breadth buys you is a fallback. When the colour you wanted is gone in your size, a model with three hundred siblings has a near-identical alternative one page away. A model with four does not, and the choice becomes pay whatever the one shop asks or wait.
The models with the most room to compare
Colourways currently in stock somewhere, and how many of the shops we check carry the model. A snapshot — the hub pages below are always current.
| Model | Brand | Colourways | Shops |
|---|---|---|---|
| Predator | adidas | 413 | 22 |
| Adizero | adidas | 394 | 25 |
| F50 | adidas | 381 | 21 |
| Chuck Taylor All Star | Converse | 360 | 23 |
| Air Max | Nike | 351 | 26 |
| Handball Spezial | adidas | 297 | 25 |
| Superstar | adidas | 276 | 22 |
| Air Force 1 Low | Nike | 270 | 25 |
Note what is at the top. Football boots, not lifestyle sneakers: Predator and F50 are carried by sports chains and sneaker specialists alike, and those two kinds of shop almost never price the same way. The Air Max family reaches the most shops of any entry here, which is why a generic Air Max is one of the easiest things in the catalogue to buy well.
The four groups that reward the effort
- Terrace classics — Samba, Campus, Handball Spezial, Superstar. Broad, constantly restocked, and discounted at different times by different shops.
- Canvas staples — the Chuck Taylor above all. Thousands of variants over the years, and the widest spread between shops we see anywhere in the catalogue.
- Big running families — Air Max, Adizero, Air Zoom. Deep enough that last year's version is often still on sale beside this year's, at a shop that has not cleared it yet.
- Football boots — Predator, F50, Phantom. The one category where a general sports chain and a sneaker specialist stock exactly the same thing and disagree about it most.
And where comparing is theatre
For a collaboration, a one-off or anything with a single European stockist, comparing is a ritual with no payoff. Read the page, decide whether you want it at the price in front of you, and spend the saved five minutes on something else. We would rather tell you that than pad a page with an alternative you do not want — a product page here says plainly when one shop has it, because that is the useful fact.
How to use this in practice
Start from the model hub rather than from a single colourway. The hub puts every version we hold side by side, so you can see at a glance whether the shoe you want is one of the broad ones worth shopping around or a narrow one to take or leave. From there the product page gives you each shop, its stock, and the sizes it still has.
The hubs where a whole range sits side by side:
Three of the most widely stocked shoes in the catalogue. Each is carried by more than a dozen shops today.
