Jack (@jbwells2 on TikTok) runs her store Jack’s Vintage on the secondhand fashion app Depop. She posted a video on Jan. 24 where she tries on a variety of thrifted clothes, modeling skirts and jackets that she would later post to her online store. “This right here is the best thrift haul you will ever see,” she says, holding up a large bag overflowing with clothes.
This is from Steffi Cao, “People Are Calling A Depop Seller ‘A Bad Person’ After She Posted A Haul Of The Thrift Store Finds She Planned To Sell,” Buzzfeednews.com, February 22, 2023.
When you read the article, you learn that Jack appears to make her living by finding diamonds in the rough, buying them, and selling them at much higher prices than the prices she paid. In buying, she benefits the thrift stores from which she bought; otherwise, they wouldn’t sell to her. In selling, she benefits the people she sells to; otherwise, they wouldn’t buy. And Jack is better off in the process. So it’s win-win-win.
But some people object.
A person who calls herself “kat” says:
people who go to thrift stores, find amazing s**t like this, and then sell it all on depop for 4x the price are the landlords of this generation.
Kat is unwittingly correct. Jack is like a landlord. She, like landlords, performs a valuable service. Landlords buy properties, often improve them, usually maintain them and rent them to people who want to rent. Now if Kat’s objection to landlords is that the rents are too high, she’s singling out the wrong villain. The main reason rents are so high is that governments in the United States have systematically prevented people from building.
Kat and others could object that because Jack is buying up undervalued clothing, she’s making it harder for people like Kat to find those diamonds in the rough. That’s true. But that’s true of every good or service. When someone buys something, it’s not available for someone else to buy. Would Kat object to book buyers finding undervalued books and then reselling them online? Possibly. But it’s not a good objection.
Interestingly, many people who defended Jack argued that she was simply being repaid for her time. That’s true and it’s a good point.
But imagine that Jack was really good at what she does and can make $200 an hour. (I know that that’s highly unlikely but work with me here.) Would that make the gains to the sellers or to the buyers any less? No, it wouldn’t.
Also, Jack is modeling some good behavior for others who are willing to see. She posted on Instagram that:
selling vintage clothes is how she is able to support herself as a college kid without family financial support. “I started Jack’s Vntg in February of 2022, still in school, with $100 to my name, and a lot of hope,” she wrote. “Not to sound dramatic, but it saved my life. I was able to pay my bills, eat, and survive on my own as an 18 year old.”
Keep it up, Jack. We need more, not fewer, people like you.
HT2 to Abby Hall.
READER COMMENTS
Jon Murphy
Feb 24 2023 at 8:32am
Even if one wants to shame people for earning profit, the solution isn’t to restrict supply, but to increase it. Jack, with her store, is reducing prices on the margin, not increasing them. She is marginally increasing the supply, which in turn lowers prices from where they would be. Of course, her one store won’t do much by itself, but others following her lead will force down the price and, subsequently, the profit.
BC
Feb 24 2023 at 11:43am
If kat doesn’t like Jack selling thrift store inventory at a profit, then kat should hunt for the inventory herself and sell it for less.
I wonder how many people objecting to Jack’s activities to fund her college education also, without recognizing the irony, advocate that more of taxpayers’ money be made available for other people to fund their college educations without doing any work in exchange.
“In buying, [Jack] benefits the thrift stores from which she bought.” Yes, she is not only helping the thrift store sell its inventory, Jack is also taking on much of the inventory risk herself, the risk that she will not sell her inventory at the price she originally expects. (I’m guessing most thrift stores don’t allow or limit returns.) Many thrift stores sell product to raise money for charitable causes. I wonder how many of Jack’s critics also, again without irony, advocate that taxpayer money be used to pay employees of various non-profits to aid in those organizations’ charitable activities.
“[Jack] benefits the people she sells to.” Yes, Jack is finding the “diamonds in the rough” for her customers — essentially a shopping service — again taking on the risk that her customers might not like or buy her selections instead of charging a fixed, prepaid fee.
What’s amazing is that Jack found this combined role as saleswoman for the thrift stores, buying agent for her customers, and bearer of inventory risk for both not by responding to want ads or solicitations but purely from price signals. A great illustration of the communication and coordination capabilities of markets.
Philo
Feb 24 2023 at 10:08pm
Many people–leftists, especially–hate commerce, especially “middlemen”; it’s a regrettable blindness.
Dylan
Feb 25 2023 at 7:21am
I suspect that one of the things people are intuitively responding to is that there is a feeling of dishonesty on both sides of the transaction.
Take a modified scenario. A wealthy art collector stumbles upon a yard sale and happens across a painting that he knows is a Picasso that is worth millions. They’re asking $50 for it, but he haggles them down to $20 and then goes on to sell it at auction for $10m. Almost everyone will object to that behavior. There are such big information asymmetries between the buyer and the seller, that it almost feels like theft. Although you can make the exact same argument that you do here, that both sides benefit and the world gets a lost Picasso.
For the record, I don’t object to what Jack is doing while I do object to my hypothetical art collector, and I’m not sure why. Is it just the scale of the markup? Is it the fact that the haggling feels particularly greedy? Something else?
Also an aside, if you don’t know of it, there’s a pretty good short series on Netflix from a few years ago called Girlboss that tells a very similar story (and based on a real entrepreneur) If I remember correctly, she also faced similar criticism from some people as she was starting out, yet the series mostly has her as the hero.
Jon Murphy
Feb 25 2023 at 7:27am
Here’s the thing:
Buying low and selling high is an important part of life. It’s how resources get allocated to their highest use. It’s how standard of living improves or everyone. There is no dishonesty in that. Some people may not understand the transaction, but there’s no dishonesty.
The difference, rather, seems to be of scale, not dishonesty.
Dylan
Feb 25 2023 at 9:22am
Here’s another thing I thought of that goes to the other side of the transaction. Recently I stumbled on a discussion on a Shopify forum. I didn’t understand all the details, but essentially there was some feature there that this seller was looking to turn off, because you could see that he had bought something from another Shopify seller and what he’d paid for it. He, correctly I assume, figured his customers wouldn’t be happy to know that he was marking up 3x the pieces he had found and it was hurting his business.
But why would this be so? If everyone is better off and there is no dishonesty, why would being transparent about what he paid make his customers so upset that they would choose not to buy something they otherwise would have at that price?
Dylan
Feb 25 2023 at 9:34am
One other thing, you didn’t answer if you thought the collector in my hypothetical was acting morally?
Coincidentally, after writing this post I saw a story on the BBC about a record shop owner who bought some albums in an estate sale and found a “priceless” letter inside one from the Pet Shop Boys to the first DJ that played their record. The shop owner contacted the estate to make sure they didn’t make a mistake, and was going to give it back, but they went ahead and said keep it. And the shop owner is keeping it and framing it.
I think most people think of this as a happier ending than if the shop owner just thanked his lucky stars, didn’t contact the estate and sold it to a collector for a million pounds. Why?
Jon Murphy
Feb 25 2023 at 11:58am
If it is ok with you, I am going to respond to both of your posts and points here just to keep things clean.
Why do you assume the customers are upset? That doesn’t appear to be the case from the story. Rather, it seems like a situation where a competitor wants to keep information to himself. He wants the feature shut off not because customers would be upset knowing he makes a buck, but because he doesn’t want his customers to know that the same item can be bought elsewhere for a lower price.
He is acting morally. And the majority of folks would agree with my assesment, I should think. Why? Because no one is demanding that the collector return the merchandise, or that he be tried for any fraud or any dishonesty. Sure, people will say he should have done something different, but few seek to condemn him.
How is his behavior any different from the wholesaler who buys from the factory at $1 and sells to the retailer at $1.10?
David Henderson
Feb 25 2023 at 6:15pm
You said:
I think it’s because people still carry around with them the idea that it’s a zero-sum game. I myself don’t think of this as a happier ending.
john hare
Feb 25 2023 at 5:43pm
I have seen it happen that a potential buyer will dishonestly talk down an item to try to get it for less. At some point a moral line is crossed. I feel fortunate that I am in a position to tell potential “customers” of this nature to take a hike.
David Seltzer
Feb 25 2023 at 4:40pm
Dylan: Caveat Venditor. Take a modified scenario. A wealthy art collector stumbles upon a yard sale and happens across a painting that he knows is a Picasso that is worth millions. They’re asking $50 for it, but he haggles them down to $20 and then goes on to sell it at auction for $10m. Almost everyone will object to that behavior. There are such big information asymmetries between the buyer and the seller, that it almost feels like theft. There are two parties to this transaction. The seller in your modified scenario failed to do his due diligence. He would have incurred a rather modest transaction cost if he had asked an art appraiser, of whom there are many, to to assess the market value of this heretofore undiscovered Picasso.
David Henderson
Feb 25 2023 at 6:16pm
You didn’t specify why people feel it’s dishonest. The way you set up the example, there was not dishonesty.
Mark Barbieri
Feb 25 2023 at 9:07am
I feel like the fact that someone is making money is a good way for them to know that they are doing good. Setting aside things like extortion and government enabled rent seeking, you don’t make money unless you are adding value. I’ve been involved with a number of charities where the value proposition was much more questionable.
Vivian Darkbloom
Feb 25 2023 at 11:06am
I think one of the reasons people object to folks buying things at “thrift stores” at rock bottom prices and turning around and re-selling them for multiples of what they paid is it arguably ostensibly runs against the stated purpose of those stores and the people who donated to them. As I understand it the original purpose of the Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc., stores was to 1) enable people of very modest means to buy essentials for personal use at a cost they could afford; and 2) to use any profits from those activities (raw inventory cost is basically zero) to fund programs like job training. In reality, the greater portion of the revenue (90 percent in respect to Goodwill based on a report I read) is eaten up by administrative costs so the first purpose is, in practice, probably more closely related to “charity”.
No one has yet mentioned that people who donate goods to the likes of the Salvation Army can claim an itemized deduction for the “fair market value” of those goods as a “charitable deduction”. Query: If I donate a sweater to the Salvation Army and they give me a statement that the FMV is $20 should they be obliged to sell it at that price?. If they sell it for less than the FMV (say,$5) why should I get a charitable deduction of $20?
In practice, I suspect there is a lot of “insider trading” that goes on in these thrift stores where employees either purchase items that come in themselves or tip off others such as Jack as to “bargains” and potential profits to be had. Should the charitable deduction serve to benefit Jack or the people he sells to?
This area is hard to regulate and is perhaps not the largest tax expenditure in the federal budget nevertheless the rules regarding the charitable deduction in these cases should probably be re-visited.
AMT
Feb 28 2023 at 12:54pm
This is the most important issue here. People should not be complaining about resellers who procure goods from other for-profit entities, but I see where they are coming from if they view the reseller as exploiting a charity. Yes, goodwill is a non-profit that takes donations from people to sell at essentially nominal prices, ostensibly to benefit the poor.
A pretty close analogy would be if someone went to a soup kitchen for a free meal, and then took it to sell out of their food truck. That of course probably violates some food safety laws and could not be viable or scalable, but you can purchase a lot of used clothing for a nominal amount and then sell it for a profit. Another closer analogy would be taking canned goods that were donated to charities and then reselling them at your store.
On the other hand, I’m not sure if there is much or any harm done to the poor, or anyone really from this type of activity. I can see how you can frame the reseller’s actions as a service that provides value to others, without harming others, assuming there is still plenty of very cheap clothing for anyone who still wants it.
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