StockX has finally made its long-awaited trip across the Atlantic after opening an authentication center in London. The “Stock Market of Things” officially announced its expansion in an email to members today.

StockX will now have a team of local authenticators in London, who will make sure every item bought and sold through the platform is 100 percent verified authentic. As a result, European buyers and sellers will benefit in a number of ways.

Highsnobiety caught up with StockX CEO Josh Luber at the grand opening of StockX London to ask him a few questions about how the move will change the footwear resale market for the better.

Luber outlines four main improvements: “Number one is lower shipping, we’ve worked with our vendors to get shipping prices down by around 60 or 70 percent," says Luber. "Number two is transparency around duties and VAT; no more surprise calls from UPS or someone showing up at your door asking for money. Number three is local currency; we’ve worked to incorporate the top fifteen currencies in the world. Number four is a faster transaction because we’ll have local operations.”

Streamlining the buying and selling process seems to be a major overarching theme, which Luber says will not only help buyers and sellers but also StockX. Luber says: “Those four things have removed a lot of friction from the buying and selling process [and made it a less complicated process for European sneakerheads].

"What that does is it attracts more buyers and sellers. StockX at its very core operates like a stock market so, the more people that are on it, the better it gets.”

As to why London was the first port of expansion, Luber says, “London was a pretty obvious choice for us because for us we want to be as close as we can to our sellers. We want to get the product as quick as possible and we want to pay out our sellers as quick as possible. Outside of New York and Los Angeles, London has more sellers than anywhere else in the world.”

To see what else went down at the StockX London launch event and what people were wearing, flip through the images above.

What are your thoughts on StockX’s expansion into Europe? Let us know in the comments below.

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