I sniff sneakers for a living. No, really

CoolKicks on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles may look like a simple sneaker shop — one of those places sneakerheads love to haunt for new releases and secondhand shoes that other collectors have sold to the store.

But inside, it's more like retail-theater-meets-game-show as shoe buyer and lead authenticator Rami Almordaah does his thing behind the store counter. He's unleashing a steady stream of patter — and prices he's willing to pay for your shoes — as he flips, pokes and even smells sneakers to determine if they're the real deal. (Pro tip: glue smell means it's fake)

Authenticators such as Almordaah are crucial to the multibillion-dollar global sneaker resale industry because customers need to trust that the expensive shoes they want to buy or sell aren't cheap knockoffs.

The sneaker resale business has matured well beyond its teens-with-extra-cash roots into a collectibles industry in which shoes are assets that trade like stocks on well-known sites including StockX, GOAT and For real-time, in-store immediacy, sneaker stans will buy and sell at a place such as CoolKicks, with an inventory of more than 10,000 new and used shoes.