In a competitive market, so the thinking goes, it’s simply supply and demand.Ĭurrently, the hottest genre of clothing on Depop, as Vox’s Rebecca Jennings has reported, is Y2K and ’90s styles: satin bustiers, low-rise jeans, baguette bags, halter tops, and cropped tees. For resellers, though, so long as there is at least one buyer willing to pay the listed amount, the price must not be that outrageous. These young consumers might have minimal knowledge to help discern true vintage items from the mounds of thrifted clothes on Depop, and as a result could be paying well-above-average prices for items that aren’t really that special. On Depop, where 90 percent of active users are under 26, shop owners are often young adults or teenagers selling their thrifted garments to buyers in their age cohort. Prices are dictated by sellers, which means items’ value can range from the reasonable to the outlandish. There is perhaps no better embodiment of free market capitalism than resale marketplaces. In a world that produces too many clothes, who gets to sell and who gets to buy, even when the items are all secondhand? The argument has pervaded the fashion worlds on YouTube and TikTok over the past year, coinciding with the pandemic and its toll on the retail industry. As a result, low-income shoppers might be priced out of thrift stores in their area, and plus-sized consumers, who already struggle to find clothing in the firsthand market, could be left with fewer options.Īt the heart of this online discourse, which is being driven primarily by young women shoppers, is a broad critique of overconsumption and resellers’ profit motivations. The general argument is that resellers and bulk buyers are inadvertently raising the prices of thrifted goods by purchasing items they don’t personally need. The criticism surrounding the so-called gentrification of thrift stores has zeroed in on excessive shoppers: Depop resellers, like Vera, who mark up items found at their local Goodwill to turn a profit thrift shop YouTubers who frequently buy more than they could reasonably wear and thrift “flippers’’ who buy oversized garments to transform into smaller, fitted items. So why has buying and selling used clothes become, to use internet parlance, so problematic? That should be a good thing, especially for environmental reasons. Secondhand buying is growing - and likely contributing to the decline of fast fashion. Within this market, traditional thrift and donation stores (not-for-profit organizations such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army, for example) currently account for the bulk of secondhand sales, but the ThredUp report anticipates that resale (through independently owned consignment stores and Depop shops) will grow significantly. The secondhand apparel market was worth about $28 billion in 2019 and is expected to reach $64 billion in 2024, according to the 2020 Resale Report by ThredUp and GlobalData. Thrifting becomes a trend -> prices rise due to demand -> people who rely on thrift stores not being able to get the things they need to survive ♀️ - ً April 13, 2021 Platforms like Depop, Poshmark, and Mercari have also made secondhand buying and reselling more accessible, especially with the pandemic’s impact on in-person shopping. These vloggers, most of whom are young women, film themselves perusing through racks at Goodwill or showcasing and styling the garments they’ve found. Regular people can build a substantial social media following based on their proclivity for thrifting. In a digital world where style is constantly on display, thrifted garments are unique, and fast fashion has significantly lowered expectations around price. The popularity and proliferation of thrift haul videos on YouTube and TikTok have introduced thrift shopping to a generation of teenagers, even those who can afford to buy new items. The concern is over how upper- and middle-class “haulers” - people who purchase massive amounts of secondhand clothing for resale purposes or personal wear - are contributing to the gentrification of thrift stores. In a 28-minute video, Vera explained that she wanted to focus on growing her YouTube channel, since reselling had become “crazy time-consuming.” But nearly half the video addressed an ongoing debate in the secondhand fashion world, one of the pillars of the sustainable fashion movement. In March, Vera decided to permanently close Color Club and leave behind her 83,000 Depop followers. Her shop, Color Club, specializes in vintage styles from the 1970s through the early 2000s, and most of the garments are sourced from local thrift stores in Virginia, where she lives. Alli Vera has sold more than 2,600 articles of clothing on Depop since 2016.
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