A Davenport North graduate is stepping into a new venture in his hometown.
Holden Conner, 24, is the owner of Trial Run QC, a new sneaker/vintage/streetwear store opening in NorthPark Mall next month. The store is located just outside the food court, across from Hibbett Sports.
The grand opening is scheduled for Oct. 4 with the store taking on regular mall hours of 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. Monday-Saturday and Sundays from noon to 6 p.m. Although this is his first store in the Quad-Cities, it’s not Conner’s first Trial Run store. Nor is it his first venture selling shoes in the Quad-Cities.
“It started during high school and college. I just sold shoes to make extra money,” he said.
His high school job scooping ice cream at Whitey’s wasn’t enough to help him afford the shoes he wanted. Instead, he started buying and reselling, using that money to buy shoes for himself.
The hobby continued until he got to the University of Iowa, where he met a fellow student who was doing the same thing. The pair were competitors for a while, but when the COVID pandemic hit, they teamed up instead of trying to outbid one another for the same products.
Eventually, his business partner transferred to the University of Louisville and Conner held on at Iowa. The pair remained partners and then brought in a third person when the business started booming.
Two years ago the trio decided to take a leap of faith and opened their first brick and mortar, Trial Run Sneakers, in Clarksville, Indiana.
“I moved away right after college to open the Indiana store, but we never even thought about doing a store (before that),” he said. “We were just kind of (selling) on the side, but it gets tough because there’s not as much money in it because it’s not as easy to get stuff. So we opened up a spot to see how it did, and it did phenomenal.”
With none of them having any connections to Indiana, it seemed like a random location, Conner admitted. But with it being across the Ohio River from Louisville and the Greentree Mall offering a short-term lease, it seemed like the perfect place to see if they could get the store off the ground.
Up until that point, Conner and his partners did $150,000 in sales in 10 months just selling online. Within two months of opening the Indiana store, they made an additional $150,000 in sales.
“It was a really good feeling for us,” he said.
The store has a buy, trade or sell format that Conner said works similarly to a pawn shop. He and his staff are looking for high quality, premium sneakers and even have a warehouse in Chicago where they keep extra inventory.
“The great part is, people can bring in their own items, we authenticate them and we’re very picky. You can’t just bring anything in,” he said. “But that being said, you can bring your stuff in and if it’s good value, we’ll give you money towards something else, or we can just buy it for cash as well.”
The store originally started off with just sneakers, the name Trial Run being a play on the fact that Conner would only have shoes for a limited time and customers would have to run to get them while they could. It didn’t take long for him and his partners to realize clothing was a big part of the process, too.
Conner has a list of brands he’s looking for, with Jordan being the most desired. Rare, unique and exclusive sneakers from name brands are the most desired, and what Trial Run will be selling, he said.
The goal is to bring faces to the reselling game and provide a place where sneakerheads can get the best price for their shoes, and find new ones at a fair price, too.
“I would say 90% of our products are cheaper than what you can get them for online, and you don’t have to wait two weeks, which is typical of those delivery times for those places,” he said. “And if it’s not (cheaper), we will work with people, too.”
With just a few weeks until opening day, Conner is excited to be back in his hometown and opening another branch of his store.
“I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback. Obviously, I’ve got a ton of friends and family here, just being from here, so I’ve had a lot of help with this thing,” he said. “But other than that, it’s just me. I just want people to be excited for it. It feels good.”
More information and progress on the Trail Run store can be tracked on Instagram at @trialrunqca or on Facebook at Trial Run Quad Cities.
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