0°C | Thursday November 13, 2025 
10 August 2023
By James Mullan
The Back Wall is Crows Nest’s newest retail hotspot sporting a range of the hottest sneakers on the market.
At just 23 years of age, owner Jack James opened the store – sporting a bright orange exterior – just off Willoughby Road in Ernest Place after showing a lifelong passion for fresh kicks.
The Sun sat down with James to find out how he’s done it and what the community can expect from this exciting new shop front.
“I’ve always been into sneakers,” he said. “I’ve always enjoyed the sneaker scene, the fashion, the style. My interest and love of sports can be mixed in with business.”
“I’ve been selling them since I left school and did it part time while I was at Uni.”
Once James was finished with his studies, he had saved up enough to open up a physical store just up the road from where he’s living in North Sydney.
But selling shoes hadn’t been his plan from the start, getting involved in the business whilst also coaching cricket to make ends meet.
“It was always a side hustle but one of my friends was selling them.”
Not long into balancing both the sneakers took over due to the quick success he experienced, he added.
Surprisingly, James has no experience working in customer facing retail but he told the Sun the response was immediately positive.
“The community was fantastic, it was a great opening on Crows Nest festival day and up until Christmas we had really strong sales with everyone getting around us,” he said.
“There’s nothing like this sneaker store on the North Shore.”
The Back Wall’s main customer base are indeed locals, perhaps indicating the want for casual, lifestyle sneaker stores in the area outside of Chatswood.
Excitingly, James managed to land a contract with Veja, a French sneaker company that makes their product out of organic cotton and recycled plastic bottles primarily for Women in March.
“People love the fact that we’ve got them here because they are a really tough brand to get in,” he said.
Even bigger chain stores like Platypus, JD and Footlocker don’t stock them, he said, with Veja stock flying off the shelves.
The Back Wall has positioned themselves as a unique store, be it colour or styles.
“No matter the brand, we are always trying to get shoes that the big players aren’t,” James explained, with American sports footwear company Saucony being the first brand they stocked.
“Everyone loves them, our first best seller was the Saucony 6000 cheesecake that had a strawberry tongue,” he laghed.
For any sweet tooths, they have a Saucony coffee pack coming in soon featuring mocha colour schemes whilst the more standard Saucony 5000s have been very popular.
While interviewing James he pointed out his quite unique Saucony Hare collaboration he had on which featured fluffy shoe laces that he was rocking.
Another big seller is Doc Martens, including the rather bold and unique pink fluffy Docs, classic Nikes and Adidas shoes are also available for those who haven’t had their pink punk phase yet and Nike Air Force 1s are a classic make that James says everyone loves; whilst the Air Max 27 has been selling fast of late.
The Back Wall is also a family affair with James’ mother helping on weekends as well as his wife giving hands on the deck too.
Looking forwards he hopes to expand the business into other areas of Sydney, taking the approach of setting up on high streets as opposed to in shopping centres.