Flipping jackets and the spirit of the lounge

[JMax]

I’ve done that a couple times here, on ebay, wherever. Put a jacket up for sale and priced it thinking I paid x for it, but in reality I paid y. So many jackets so little time. It happens.

 

[Brandrea33]

The only time I sold a jacket anywhere was here, but it wasn’t a classified listing, I reached out to the member via PM.

I figured he might be interested in the jacket I had, I sold it at a fair price.

Conversely, I bought a jacket here under similar circumstances… the seller reached out to me via PM because he knew I would appreciate the jacket.

IMHO that’s what the spirit of the Lounge is all about.

 

[jonbuilder]

Struggling with this one. I think I may change my answer alot depending on the circumstances. For instance. If someone is purely buying the jacket to flip it and they're doing it over and over again, essentially taking jackets off the market to create some sort of monopoly, then I'd be against this. If someone is buying a jacket, tries it on, doesn't like it, maybe does some clean up, fixes, etc. and adds some extra to it to cover shipping/time/whatever, I got no problem with that.

Being this is an "informed" crowd, I doubt someone is getting some sort of sleeper jacket that no one knew the true value. What I think happens more times than not is just a matter of timing. Certain brands, styles, etc. get hot around here and those tend to move quicker as a sort of frenzy develops. There could also be a dry spell of certain things or just an over supply. And those sit around and the price drops. All this is economics 101.

My straight zip Cal I bought on here, the TFLer picked it up for peanuts at a thrift shop. Didn't even realize what he had until people here confirmed it. I paid probably 7 or 8x what he bought it for. TBH, I have no issues with it. I didn't expect him to sell it for the thrift store price. I guess you could make an argument that the "community" made him realize what he had and therefore he should have been less aggressive with the price. IDK, I could flip a coin on this one and be wrong or right in either case LOL.

Bottom line, other than maybe at best covering my shipping costs over the price from the first transaction, I'm pretty sure I typically lose $50-200 bucks on anything I've bought and resold. I'd say that's happened at least 10-15 times. I think the people who are trying to do this as a side hustle are going to get burned more than they make a few bucks here and there. Again, unless they are very quick fingered and buying everything up or at least the jackets that have some potential for upside when the timing is good, most jackets seem to be fairly priced give or take 10%.

The other scenario I'd comment on is people buying jackets here and then flipping them on Ebay. Now obviously this is a more dangerous game because of the fees and need more higher pricing. Fundamentally I'd be against this as I like to see the jackets stay in the TFL community. But if said person honestly tried to sell the jacket here and there's no takers and he gets a higher price somewhere else, it's a little hard to cast judgement on that. Again the circumstances, frequency and just overall intent would get a different answer from me.

Bottom line, I think it's one of those you know it when you see it kind of things. I'd say generally speaking the more extreme cases are breaking the spirit. Someone adding like $50-100 to what they paid to hopefully cover shipping and leave room for negotiating, I have no problem with that, even if they doing it 1000 times.

Well put, I wish I could express myself as well

 

[willyto]

So how do we feel about this?

Original listing :

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/thr...arnstormer-jacket-sz-m-40.106621/post-2886181

Now listed for more than three times the money :

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/ralph-lauren-barnstormer-sz-m.109829/post-2974609

Denim & Supply is a low tier cheap sub brand from RL, that jacket is not worth that at all. Just because of that the $500 price tag is quite funny but seeing it sold for 150€ first it's even more outrageous. Even the $245 are because he didn't do a single thing to the jacket.

One of the reasons why I abandoned the vintage community in general is this attitude and usually for some reason is very present in people who are based in the US with that hustle culture to make money on every single thing even if that means ripping off other people. They didn't bother to repair a thing, not clean, not press suits or shits, just buy from some member of a group and resell it to the same group of people for even x20 the price.

Personally I find that disgusting but to each their own. Maybe that's the reason why I'm not rich or something but in the end these are USED goods, I can even get cheaper stuff straight from Japan with shipping, taxes, custom duties,etc than buying from Ebay.

People buy an expensive garment and when they sell it they want to recover every single cent on the item. I don't see the logic here.

 

[Aloysius]

So how do we feel about this?

Original listing :

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/thr...arnstormer-jacket-sz-m-40.106621/post-2886181

Now listed for more than three times the money :

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/ralph-lauren-barnstormer-sz-m.109829/post-2974609

Lol I was confused at first because the jacket was just priced about $60 higher (which could be explained by inflation, buying at a worse exchange rate, etc) then saw there was an edit yesterday, along with a self righteous screed about pricing up to the true quality.