Random Fashion Thoughts (Part 3: Style farmer strikes back) - our general discussion thread

[steveoffice]

ugh and dont forget you have to pay tax on ebay stuff (as a buyer)

 

[Pangolin]

I don't know. I've been able to move a lot of stuff these past few weeks between Grailed and the SF market. My prices are probably lower than average compared to similar items, but I've gotten reasonable offers, have accepted them, and cleared a fair amount of space. (What I don't get though is that the stronger pieces I have listed are still available).

I generally don't buy on Grailed, but it seems that it's also full of assholes with unrealistic expectations, on both the selling and buying sides.

 

[dfagdfsh]

what type of stuff are you selling?

 

[Pangolin]

The bulk of the Schneider pieces I've accumulated over the years.
The brand is probably less popular these days than it was a few years ago but on the other hand, I feel that I deal with more reasonable buyers, for lack of a better adjective.

 

[dieworkwear]

My impression is that sellers often set their prices too high, or at least higher than what they themselves would pay as a buyer. People seem to come into a deal with different biases on what they think is a fair price depending on whether they're selling or buying an item.

At the same time, I don't think the market is totally even across the board. My sense is that people who buy hyped brands like Visvim are more annoying than people buying Schneider. You're more likely to get people who haggle, drop out of deals, etc. The more hyped the brand, the more likely you're probably going to deal with this kind of buyer.

 

[OccultaVexillum]

Thats part of the issue with grailed though. You are kind of forced to pricethings high due to the inevitable price drops.

If you want $200 for something, you need to list it at ~$320. If you just put it up at $200 from day one you'd just get offers for $120.

 

[smittycl]

This just posted in the Atlantic:

Why Teens Are Selling Clothes Out of Their Closets

On Depop, thrifted outfits and original fashion are the gateway to influencer status.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[cyc wid it]

Saw a Poshmark TV spot geared toward men yesterday - was testimonial style with some dude talking about selling Jordans etc.

 

[Callusing]

So I've got something like 350 sales on Grailed, and I've found the following:

1. The overall quality of buyers took a complete nosedive ~18 months ago. Same number of good buyers, but a flood of cheapos since.
2. ****** buyers flock to the two ends of the spectrum - very hyped brands and very little-known brands. I just sold a John Elliott leather jacket recently. It got more interest than anything I've posted in the past 6 months, but most of that "extra" interest was from people who tried to "teach me" what the price of my jacket "should" be. And for very-little-known brands, I get a lot of offers from people who basically seem to think that because it's a smaller brand, they should get a TJ MAXX price for it.
3. The biggest problem area, price-wise, is $100-$400. Below $100, I don't care enough, and usually I can just do a couple counters and get to a reasonable price. Above $400 (with the exception of hyped brands), most of the time the people I'm talking to know what a reasonable price for whatever I'm selling is. But it's in that middle range - maybe because it's the "frugalmalefashion / reddit streetwear aspirational purchase zone" - that I get the most people who are PURELY trying to get the best "deal" possible and have no respect for me as a seller.
4. The price drop issue is real. I have tried selling things both ways - selling at a price that I believe is fair off the bat, and selling at a price where I have "space for drops". The only time I get what I'm looking for in the former case is when I've got something rare with a well-established secondhand market value. (Like, limited-issue stuff that sells secondhand for close to MSRP) I'm more likely to sell something at $400 if I dropped it 3 times to get it there, even if that initial price was unreasonably high.
5. The price drop issue was DRAMATICALLY exacerbated when Grailed shifted their default search order from "Default" (which puts most recent / most-recently-bumped listings first) to "Trending" (which heavily weights toward items that are "favorited" a lot). Basically, with the new sort method, if I try to price something fairly and only 10 people like it, nobody except those 10 people are ever gonna find it. But if I try to price something for bumps and get 40 likes, even if 30 are tire-kickers, it'll show up way higher on everybody's searches.

The best consequence of the incredible unpleasantness of selling on Grailed is that it's made me become much more careful about purchases just so I don't have to deal with selling stuff.

 

[dieworkwear]

I don't really use Grailed, so don't understand the price drop system. But can't you just list and let it sit forever? And hope someone finds it through searches?

 

[OccultaVexillum]

You can, but it’s rare. I have pre-set filters for things im Looking for (Lemaire, Haider, Berluti, Dries etc) and if for some reason I look outside of that I’ll search, but then you find stuff that was listed 14 months ago with no bumps and the seller is unresponsive. I’ve bought stuff like that and the seller never shipped or responded, presumably because they never checked Grailed again or sold it some other way and then you have to go through a whole refund process.
If I list something I’ll bump it until you can no longer do it, then I’ll drop prices a few times until it gets to something I’m comfortable with. Then I’ll just delete it and reload it back it the original price.
It’s just a ******* ordeal

And if the fees and whatnot didn’t exist and the marketplace wasn’t so toxic I’d happily sell for less. Like on here I will happily give people much better prices than Grailed (assuming the buyer isn’t a dick that offers me “how about $85 for everything you have?”)

 

[Callusing]

You can. If I was more patient, that might work.

Essentially, the system is:

1. When you post something, you can bump it to the top every 7 days without dropping the price, up to 4 bumps within the first 30 days
2. When you drop the price, you get an extra bump and everybody who has favorited your product gets notified
3. If people are sorting by "Default", everything sorts by most recent update (bump / new posting). If people are sorting by "Trending", there is also some significant weighting factor that puts stuff with more "Favorites" on the top.

I have had very, very few things sell when they haven't been "bumped" within the past week. I expect this is in part because of the way Grailed presents things (which requires a LOT more scrolling to page through many listings than eBay) and in part because of the way buyers use it.

I absolutely could cross my fingers and hope somebody looking for a Geller Khaki Bomber happens to search for that exact thing. But I think most Grailed buyers browse using filters for the most part...they certainly set up the site to encourage that. (Their Search function is consistently disappointing) And if I just run a search for Robert Geller Outerwear right now, there are 91 listings and by the looks of it anything that's more than 30 days old is gonna have a few dozen listings above it. I've had very few buyers find my older listings.

(FWIW, I just deleted all my Grailed filters this morning because I'm done buying **** off there, but I also browsed exclusively using filters, and would just scroll through the filtered list a couple times per day.)

That last part isn't a Grailed problem per se as much as it is a reflection of the fact that there's more "competitive" product on the market for anything any of us might want to sell. But it still means I'm regularly forced to drop my price just so somebody sees what I'm selling.

I do the same thing as @OccultaVexillum . List, use the 4 "free" bumps, do 3-4 price drops after that, and if it doesn't sell re-list the whole thing. Repeat until the damn thing sells.

 

[dfagdfsh]

Or just post it on eBay. I've had a lot of luck on eBay lately.

 

[verver]

Good god, this is tiresome. I just donate stuff I don’t want anymore. Don’t have time for this crap

 

[steveoffice]

you can always consign through @SpooPoker if you don't want to deal with all the crap