German luxury clothes/shoes manufacturing company Adidas are literally considering burning Yeezy apparel worth 500 million dollars following their "breakup" with fashion designer Kanye West.
That is 63.4 billion Kenyan shillings planning on being set ablaze guys! 63.4 billion!
Adidas, which is a giant sportswear company revealed that it has tons of unsold Ye merchandise and they no longer know what to do with it so this is one of their big bright ideas
I mean they can donate them? Slash prices to literally like 20 dollars and have a sale! There are so many things I can think of it is infuriating.
The company cut ties with West late last year following Ye's catastrophic personal meltdown, his on-and-off posting of racist rants and memes online, and fraternizing with notorious others.
A month ago, the firm's new boss told its investors it could lose hundreds of millions of dollars this year if it decides not to sell its stock of Yeezy sneakers.
The announcement marked the company's fourth profit warning since July.
"The numbers speak for themselves. We are currently not performing the way we should," the company's chief executive Bjørn Gulden, said in a statement.
Adidas said it was still deciding whether to scrap its remaining Yeezy stock and would take a €500m ($536m/ £443m) hit to its profits if it is all written off as it was facing a quantity of unsellable merchandise on “a scale unseen in the fashion industry.”
But since then, it seems they still haven't come to a decision in regards to what to do with the unsold Yeezy stock.
One option being considered was attempting to re-brand the sneakers and sell them at a discount from the previous Yeezy-brand price of about $200 to $600 per pair, with the labelling removed, making them “zombie Yeezys.”
The move however, comes with legal and public relations risks, as the company would take a financial hit but still be vulnerable to accusations it was profiting from the association with an unrepentant antisemite.
Another possible solution includes liquidating the remaining Yeezy sneakers at discount stores or donating them.
However, if Adidas is unable to find buyers for the sneakers, one possible path to resolving the dilemma would be “literally burning the shoes,” the Washington Post reported, citing industry experts
But that means the maximum financial hit with zero sales and only the tax write-off. But the bigger downside to that is the sheer fact that it could spark backlash over waste and environmental costs.
The only safe move PR-wise might be to donate the shoes, to areas in Syria and Turkey devastated by the recent earthquake or probably copy the Nike program that chops up donated and unsellable shoes into materials for gym floors and new sneaker soles, but that still means a massive financial hit.
Adidas has yet to announce the fate of the hundreds of millions of dollars of Yeezy sneakers and is expected to take a few more months to make a final decision.
With that being said, the German manufacturing giant wouldn’t be the first company to torch its product.
Several retailers, including Burberry, Coach, Victoria’s Secret, Louis Vuitton, and Nike, have opted to destroy inventory that went unsold as a means of clearing surplus supply.
But it is 2023 and experts are warning the practice, though relatively commonplace, would be the worst outcome because it would generate a lot of online backlash.
Now all eyes are on Adidas to see what move they play.
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