Ok so this is the beginning of a long story feel free to skip this post if you aren't interested. My local 2ntr used to be the best. Never charged over box price, always were cool dudes. Had a real close relationship with them, went and skated with the employees, bought all my skate gear and SBs there GR, QS, it didn't matter. The folks in there knew be by name and would call me days ahead of every SB drop to let me come in and snag them early. Then the nontourages came. There was a line stretching at least 75 deep filled with thirsty hypebeasts and only about 5 regulars, I had grabbed my pair the night before but came to see the insanity. I had never seen the place so crazy, not even for the skunks. Well after that day nothing was the same. I guess the owner saw the oppertune moment to make some more cash and jumped. At first it was no big deal, $5-10 over box, ok I understand you want to make a little more income so I'll still be supporting you 100% but by the time the levis dunks rolls around dudes are charging $40 over box, at that point im starting to get pissed off but they got in the Hyperstrikes. Unusually, I could not go in and get my pair early, some BS excuse of people will go crazy if they let go of one of the 8 pairs, so of course i go there to camp out and get them, im 2nd in line with my friend 1st. The guys on the phone told me everything was good, that as long as i was one of the first in line, I would be totally straight. So I camp out over night with a VERY small crowd only 6 regulars that had been informed that they would be straight if they camped. Morning rolls around when about 30 more show up, everyone is being very polite, orderly, and respecting the line, overall a very good crowd and a nice release. That is until the manager who shall remain nameless opens the door with some lets just say, upsetting, news. Then he proceeds to tell the straight up LIE that they only got in TWO pairs of the hyperstrikes! Needless to say us regulars are more than pissed off, we got baited and switched. When we walk in the store the employees won't even make eye contact with us and the entire vibe has shifted from what used to be a very chill atmosphere at the shop, and we are then told oh yeah sorry we only have ONE PAIR! The one pair of HS isn't even mine or my friends size but i let him snag it for trading (he wound up copping me a pair of statue of libertys down the line for this). But even though he was the ONE person in line to get them he is just as angry as me and all the other people in the line, they suckered us all in there with the $135 price for the hyperstrikes, then charged us that same price for the QS that they had a **** ton of. Well pretty needless to say they lost most if not all of their devoted regular customers. Not once since then have i spent one cent their nor have any of the others as far as i know. The stupid thing about it was we all bought much more than SBs from the shop, clothing, skate gear, etc. I myself had probably spent over $10000 there, and yet in a matter of weeks we went from valued customers to just another $. Pathetic. If you're wanting to know what happened to the other pairs guess what, they were sold on eBay, one of the employees there actually had a conscience and called me from his cell a couple days later to let me know what really happened. So yeah, that is my story of a great local gone BAD. The really sad thing about it is this same type of story is happening all over the country, greed has taken over, and the customer no longer matters. So take that "Support your local" little catch phrase with a grain of salt, nowadays many have gone to the brooklyn projects dark side and won't be coming back. I personally am happy to give my business to a GOOD shop that hasn't completely lost it's marbles and still charges the price that the shoes are actually worth. If it is not my local, then so be it, I'd rather support the truly good ones that are still out there, even though they are now the minority. God knows the great ones need our support more than ever during these days of ******g over your own customers and being rewarded with more $ for it in the short term. In closing, DON'T SUPPORT OVER BOX PRICES AT YOUR LOCAL OR THIS COULD BE YOU NEXT TIME. GIVE AN INCH AND THEY WILL TAKE A MILE.
