A Complete guide on how, when and where to buy Supreme
All you need to know
Fashion
March 7th, 2019
March 7th, 2019
In the last years, buying Supreme has become a difficult or even impossible task. The global explosion of the brand founded in New York in 1994 by James Jebbia has upset all those certainties that those who used to buy Supreme had before all of this happened.
Most of the people who choose and try to buy Supreme have only become aware of the brand in the last few years, facing a myriad of difficulties both in physical stores and online. Supreme has also upset the relationship between customer and retailer: if you happen to enter a Supreme store, you will not be greeted by smiles but you will be put in such conditions so as to leave the store as soon as possible, we will explain everything so you're ready for this new sensation. We've decided to put down a complete guide to sort things out between the day and time of the drop, how and where to see the items of the various drops and retail prices, items sold out in less than 30 seconds and those with more hype, email confirmation, collabo, resell and so on and so forth.
A total immersion in which we will accompany you step by step.
Where to see the collections before the drop
Supreme, like most brands, release two collections per year, Fall / Winter and Spring / Summer. In order to preview the items - not all - of each collection you just go to their official website and click on the "preview" category and usually one week before the drop in-store and two weeks before the first seasonal drop, the official lookbook is released of the current season where you can start making your wish list. Once the items have been presented, and extremely complete and precise site you can have a look is supremecommunity.com (they also have an app) here you will find everything really: the items and the droplist of all the seasons from 2011 onwards, the timing of sold-out, any restock, pricelist, gallery and opinions of users on each item. If you want to buy one, we advise you to visit us before they are released, you will have a clearer idea on the day of the drop, where you can not afford any doubt, and you have to choose what to buy first otherwise you will remain dry-mouthed. Timing is essential to be able to grab a Supreme piece especially if surrounded by a certain hype (supremecommunity.com also tells you this). The only thing you will not find on surpremecommunity.com is the collabs that are announced on the official website, supremenewyork.com, in the news section.
Drop: online
Here things are a bit 'simpler but not too much. The drops are every Thursday at 12:00 (Italian / CET time) on the official Supreme site by entering the shop section. Also here the advice is to get super prepared, you have to have clear ideas on what you want to buy especially if the items you want have a certain hype, if you know that some pieces will be sold out in less than 15 seconds (box logo or collaborations even faster). In recent years to make things more difficult, for the online purchases of Supreme items there has been a massive use of bots by many customers, to combat this ploy, Supreme in 2017 increased production but things changed when the collaborations were dropped (for example those with The North Face and Vans).
In this case, you will have to be super fast and have everything you need at hand:
- - list of the items you want to buy is fundamental, timing and speed will aid you
- - credit/debit card valid for making the purchase
- - the address to which to send your purchases
As for shipping times, they are usually around a week for waiting but during the first drop, where there are many orders, the times are increased up to two weeks of waiting. In the event that the order purchase has been successful, you will receive a confirmation email (the subject of the email: "online shop order has been shipped") with the order number, in case you do not receive the order confirmation, do not despair because it could arrive the next few days. The mathematical certainty of having cop will only occur when the order's e-mail with the tracking number arrives. Thanks to the tracking number you can check in real time the movements of the package destined to you until you receive it. In the case where you instead receive the confirmation email but not the shipping one the possibilities are two: the first is that it has not been sent, happens at times that despite not sending the confirmation email of what you have bought, they arrive at the address chosen by you without problems, while in the second, it could be a so-called "Ghost Order", a phantom order indeed. In this case, UPS, unfortunately, will not receive what you thought you had coped. Regarding shipping (Supreme doesn't ship to China and San Marino), in Europe Supreme ships via the UPS courier from the London store, as we said before you can constantly check the position of your package by entering the tracking number in the appropriate section on the UPS site and you can also change the shipping address in case you want to, by downloading the "UPS My Choice" app, the cost of the shipment is 15 £ (14.75 €). In case you have made an error during the online purchase, or you want to cancel or change your order, you must fill out the appropriate form on the official Supreme website or send an email to the London store at [email protected] or you can call the London store directly on the number: +44 2074370493. You might have to make a return, if you are forced to do this, this is the process to follow: to make a return you have 14 days from the date of having received the package. To get the return code of the item, or the items if you have purchased more than one, it must be returned in perfect condition - original packaging and labels still attached. In the case of a return, you will not be reimbursed the costs of shipping and it will be at your expense while it will take 15/25 days to get a refund of what you have purchased. In order to return one or more items you must click on the link that you find at the bottom of the shipping email and fill in the appropriate form, wait for the return to be accepted and send it to the following address highlighting the order number:
1994 Inc Ltd
T/A Supreme
3 Brandon Road
London N7
9AA
United Kingdom
Drop: in-store
After years of camp out, long queues, and a certain general madness that dominate the brand's drops, Supreme has changed its strategy. For about two years, in fact, to take part in a drop it's necessary to register online first. On Tuesdays, at 12 you can access a form to fill in with your data to request participation. In case you are selected, you will receive an SMS asking you to confirm your registration, to which you will have to answer YES or NO. In this way you can show up, with documents and credit card, in the store on the day of the drop, to buy without any particular inconvenience.
di credito, in store il giorno del drop, per acquistare senza particolari disagi.
Where and how to buy Supreme at reselling
Now it has become almost a norm, given the great difficulty of buying "retail". The biggest problem is that of the huge increase in price once the most desired items have sold out and it is at this point that the demand increases and the quantities decrease, hence the increase in prices. There is a real parallel market of Supreme products, there are many platforms and sites, where you can buy and sell, we recommend the best to avoid unpleasant surprises:
In addition to the classic marketplace sites, there are real communities on Facebook where you can sell and buy with discrete security but we suggest, in case you are buying an item from a private seller, to ask within the group, for a "legit check" - acronym LC- which consists in verifying the product's authenticity. Trust only when many users have given their positive opinion on the subject of the legitimacy check and in case you do not trust it, then forget it. We suggest a few groups subscribe to:
