Nike’s vice president of marketing resigned Monday following a report that said her son profited from reselling the company’s shoes.
Ann Herbert worked at Nike for 25 years before her resignation was made effective Monday, according to Yahoo Sports. Her resignation came shortly after her son revealed his identity to Bloomberg Businessweek.
Joe Herbert used his mother’s credit card to purchase Nike sneakers for his successful sneaker flipping business called Westcoast Streetwear, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Sneaker flipping is the practice of buying newly released sneakers at retail price with the intent to upsell.
“At one point in late June, after [Joe’s] trip, he’d phoned me, and the number was identified as belonging to Ann Hebert,” Bloomberg wrote about the discovery. “Hebert later sent me a statement for an American Express corporate card for WCS LLC, to demonstrate West Coast Streetwear’s revenue, and it was in Ann’s name.”
Westcoast Streetwear made $600,000 in one month alone, Herbert said to Bloomberg.
“I remember the night the stimulus checks hit. My sales tripled,” he said.
The former Nike vice president’s son had been reselling sneakers since 2017, but the pandemic offered him an advantageous way to resell by using bot accounts to drive up demand.
People within the so-called “sneakerhead” community complained and expressed disappointment on social media about this latest report.
You know how sad it feel to know you gotta pay resell for every drop… like this Nike supreme drop I just went straight to my resell plug and said how much lol … cuz I know imma take a L online .. this is depressing
— Nick Young (@NickSwagyPYoung) March 2, 2021
Reselling old sneakers can be a highly profitable business venture, especially for exclusive and limited-edition sneaker designs. The sneaker hustle became popularized when Michael Jordan released the Air Jordan 1 in 1985. (RELATED: Several Major Corporations Are Fighting To Use Slave Labor)
A spokesperson for Nike said that in 2018 the former executive revealed pertinent information about her son’s business dealings and implied she didn’t violate any company policy.