Sneaker Store Apologizes for Crushing Boxes to Stop Reselling

Whether it’s an attempt to stop bots during an online drop or making customers wear shoes out of the store, sneaker stores have employed all kinds of tactics to ward off resellers. One London retailer took it to the extreme last week, and now the shop says its actions were wrong.

On Friday, footage circulated of a scene inside London’s Offspring, which was selling unclaimed pairs from previous raffles. In the clip, an employee can be seen jumping on several boxes including the packaging for the Ambush x Nike Dunk and other unspecified Nike shoes. The controversial policy was apparently made known to shoppers beforehand and was one that Offspring initially doubled down on, posting an image of smashed boxes on its own Instagram story with the caption “We don’t wear boxes!” (pictured above).

Now, after a weekend’s worth of backlash, Offspring is apologizing for what it says was the wrong decision. “[The policy] was to ensure the item is available ‘ready to wear’ and cannot be returned,” Offspring wrote on Instagram today. “This was explained to all. The majority of people were happy but some were concerned about the value of the product minus the box and they chose not to purchase.”

The store went on to say that what it thought would be a good idea has now taken an unfortunate turn as some customers have allegedly threatened Offspring staff.

“The policies are not made by our staff and the experiments are not driven by them,” the store’s statement said. “That is neither the character nor spirit of our community and we abhor all such behaviour.”