If you've shopped adidas for any length of time, you've seen two names: plain adidas and adidas Originals. They're the same company, but they point at two very different things, and knowing which is which makes it much easier to shop. Here's the short version, plus where each line lives in our store.
One brand, two badges
adidas was founded in Germany in 1949 by Adi Dassler, and for most of its history the three stripes meant performance: football boots, running shoes, training gear. In 2001 the company carved out adidas Originals as a dedicated heritage and lifestyle line, giving it its own logo, the Trefoil, to separate "street" from "sport." So the easiest tell is the logo. The three angled bars (the "Badge of Sport") signal the performance side; the three-leaf Trefoil signals Originals.
adidas (performance): built to move
The main adidas line is about technology and training. Think running shoes with modern foams and racing plates, basketball, and everyday athletic shoes engineered for cushioning and support rather than retro looks. On our shelves that's the running and athletic side, so browse the broad adidas collection or the focused men's running shoes and Ultraboost collection if performance is what you're after. These are the pairs you buy for what they do, not just how they look.
adidas Originals (lifestyle): built to last in style
Originals is the heritage engine, home to the terrace and court classics that never went away. The Samba (an indoor soccer trainer from the late 1940s), the Handball Spezial (a 1979 indoor handball shoe), the Gazelle Indoor, and the Superstar all live here. These are lifestyle shoes: low profiles, gum soles, suede and leather uppers, and decades of street credibility. The full lineup sits in our adidas Originals collection.
Which should you buy?
Start with the job. If you want a shoe to run, train, or play in, look at the performance line for the foam, fit, and support. If you want a shoe to wear with jeans every day, something timeless that pairs with everything, Originals is the answer. Many people own both: an Ultraboost for movement and a Samba or Spezial for everything else.
A quick word on fit
The Originals terrace models don't all fit the same. The Samba runs slightly long and narrow, so a lot of people size down a half size. The Handball Spezial is the roomiest of the group and a strong pick for wider feet. The Superstar has its own quirks too. We've written dedicated guides worth reading before you buy: the Handball Spezial sizing guide and the Superstar II size guide.
How adidas compares to other labels we carry
adidas's terrace-heritage approach sits next to a few other strong sneaker stories on our shelves. For cushioned, width-friendly running and clean retro runners, see our New Balance spotlight; for the deepest bench of icons from Air Force 1s to Dunks, see our Nike spotlight.
Authentic, verified, and shipped from Portland
Whichever side you shop, every adidas pair we sell is authentic, checked in-house, and shipped from our warehouse in Portland, Oregon under our Verified & Shipped promise. Lineups rotate constantly, so use the collection links above for what's live right now.
Here is one pair from each side of the split, two Originals heritage models and one adidas performance runner:
Why buy from West Coast Deals?
Fair question, and you shouldn't take our word for it. Any seller can claim they're reputable. What matters is whether independent, public feedback backs it up, so here is where to look, none of it on a page we control.
- Judge.me: our customer reviews are rated 4.9 out of 5 on Judge.me, a third-party platform. Reviews are tied to verified orders, and the negative ones are still up because we don't remove them.
- Whatnot: we stream live nearly every day to 150,000+ followers, with 224,000+ units sold and 46,700+ reviews on our Whatnot storefront.
- TikTok Shop: another 86,200+ units sold and 9,150+ reviews on TikTok.
That adds up to more than 310,000 pairs shipped and over 55,000 public reviews from customers who actually paid us. It's timestamped, it's on platforms we don't own, and we can't delete any of it.
The live selling is the part we'd weigh most heavily if we were you. Streaming nearly every day means our staff hold real product up to a camera in front of a live chat that can ask anything and screenshot everything. Sneakerheads are not a forgiving audience. If we were moving replicas, it would take about one stream for someone to freeze-frame a stitch pattern and post it. We've been selling since 2017 out of our own 25,000 square foot warehouse at 2555 NW Nicolai Street in Portland, Oregon, which is a real address you can look up.
We go through the whole business in is West Coast Deals legit, including how to run the same check on any sneaker seller.
Why are the prices under retail?
This is the question underneath the legit question. When a pair here costs less than it does at retail, people reasonably wonder whether the gap is hiding something. It isn't the shoe.
Every season, brands and retailers end up holding product that didn't sell through: overstock, past-season colorways, closeout runs, canceled orders. That inventory moves through wholesale and liquidation channels to buyers who purchase in volume and take it as-is. We hold wholesale accounts and buy directly from retailers, distributors, and brand partners. What you're saving is the retail markup and the seasonal calendar, not authenticity. Same shoe, sourced through authorized channels.
We don't buy from consignors, we don't take trades, and we don't run a marketplace where a stranger ships you a box. There is no third-party seller between you and us, which removes the single most common source of counterfeit risk in this industry. The longer version is in why everything at West Coast Deals is under retail, every day.
— Anthony from West Coast Deals