Ethical Consumerism and Lolita Fashion

[honeyteaclover]

In my everyday life, I'm one of those consumers who scrutinizes labels on every product in the grocery store. I try to be a conscientious shopper. I've started thinking a little more about my consumer choices when it comes to lolita clothing, and I thought I'd present a particular issue to the EGL community and gather your thoughts.

Comments

[cloudsnapper]

I think it's slightly shady, but within reason. If people are really shoving customers out of the way when there are sales going on, surely they'd be banned from the store.
I bought a few things for very good prices at closet child, including a printed AP jsk for like $30. If I sold it, I would probably price it higher, unless I was just selling to a friend. You can get things super cheap from mbok, and while I've never bought things there to resell, I know that some people do. The US secondhand market just prices things higher than the Japanese one.

[teacupcracked]

I think it's totally fine for someone to resell a Closet Child purchase for higher then what they paid Closet Child at the time; I just don't think it's okay when someone buys something from them with the express purpose of never keeping it and turning it around immediately.

[lavendulalala]

The price you'd price secondhand stuff at, especially never-worn secondhand stuff, isn't just the price of the dress. If you had to pay $30 shipping on that $30 dress, I'd sell it for at least $50 if I were you - which is still a cheap price for Angelic Pretty

[cloudsnapper]

I got it while on vacation, so I didn't have to pay any fees, I don't plan on selling it any time soon.

[teacupcracked]

I think it is "wrong" on a deep moral level. It's one of those issues that I believe doesn't break any commerce laws but we know, deep down, that it's a bad practice

[lavendulalala]

Yeah - I'd like it if it was allowed for people to prove that a seller was a scalper. And I agree that it's morally but not legally wrong.

[milkteamilk]

coming in as a mod just to say: we are never going to allow people to comment on other people;s sales posts with "proof" of "scalping" like that. First of all, a screen shot of the same dress is never going to prove anything other than the same dress was also once sold at a different price. How could you possibly prove that was the dress they were selling? Also, it's every seller's right to value their own items as they see fit, and there are more factors than just "what did the price tag say when i bought it?" that can come into play when someone goes about pricing something. Frankly, coming in and demanding answers with screen shots as "proof" is harassing the seller and will always be treated as such. If you don't like the price, you have a few choices: don't buy it, or haggle a little more elegantly.

If people don't want to pay more than the seller bought it for, it's up to them to find out the item's value, not start scalper witch hunts with the intention of protecting people who cant be bothered to be informed.

[teacupcracked]

I was never suggesting people should accuse people of anything without solid evidence; or that we should do any sort of a witch hunt. And I would never support anyone bringing up evidence as a way to haggle or get the price reduced; that is definitely harassment (if not blackmail) and should not be allowed

[mboarder]

I think it is rude, but a business is a business and they are probably making a lot of money at it.
Its up to closet child to decide if they actually care, and I doubt they do. They are making the same amount of money, regardless of customers. The price hike is probably because they know the resellers will buy anyway, and so they can make more money. I wouldn't knowingly support one of the businesses, but its probably hard to tell if someone is or not.

"I've heard accounts of shopping services that arrive at Closet Child during sales/releases, shove regular shoppers out of the way, grab stuff from other people, and carry off entire racks of dresses." Proof? (sorry Im just shocked haha, and even more surprised that they haven't been banned from the store!)

I am also sad that the retail price is going up in Japan, rather than going down everywhere else in the world for secondhand clothing :(.

[deliciousncandy]

I think you kind of missed a lot of points, but whatever. It's actually fairly easy to tell who is inflating their prices, "e-stores" sell things for almost 35% more than pretty much everyone else does and they still have stock from years ago that no one is buying, infact most smaller e-stores like that who sell on egl tend to price things much higher for some reason

[mboarder]

Oh I thought honeyteaclover said that they price things the same as regular. I don't really check the comm sales so I don't know (thats why I said probably). I was going to suggest that someone made a list of the accounts that do this so people know where not to buy from, like how there is a scam store list and stuff, but I forgot

[agewa]

One of my friends, who lives in Tokyo and isn't a Lolita, but bought some Mary Magdalene on a whim several years ago, wanted to get rid of them and sell them to Closet Child. She was shocked to discover how little second-hand stores offer to pay you for your stuff considering the prices they sell them for afterwards.

(She ended up selling her stuff to her LJ friends. Like, she sold a MM coat for 5,000 yen - and Closet Child had offered her even less than that.)

[bloodconfetti]

I don't see what's so unethical about it. They aren't stealing the dresses, right? They're merely purchasing and re-selling. It's the job of the consumer to decide whether or not they are willing to pay the price of ANY dress/item being sold on the market, and the job of the market to watch those prices and keep them in mind for their companies.

[honeyteaclover]

I just want to provide this hypothetical scenario to contemplate

[bloodconfetti]

I definitely understand what you're saying, but if 'he' put in the effort to do all of that, and paid for the item, I'd say he earned that dress as much as any other customer, and what he does with it afterwards is his business. It may be unfair, but life on the whole is completely 'unfair' and you either have to get smart in the same way, or learn to accept that you're not always going to get everything you want. That's just how life works.

[___ifwinterends]

Cutting people in line, shoving them and taking dresses out of their hands then making a huge scene in the shop shouting in Chinese at Japanese female customers is not exactly what I'd call "putting in the effort". I mean I could rob a bank but I don't think saying that the effort of robbing it was such that I earned the money would really hold up in court. He's not punching people or making death threats so technically what he's doing isn't illegal, but it's very unethical and downright rude.

[adulbae]

When it comes to luxury items like lolita (instead of say, necessities like food and drink), I don't have any issues with people buying cheap and then marking up the price or scalping, really. The Western lolita market has a higher resale price than the Japanese one, and some people just don't have the time/willingness to go browse Closet Child or mbok themselves to get better prices, and are willing to pay more. That's just economics, and the worst that could happen is that someone chooses to pay (or not to pay) a higher price for a dress that they want.

The whole 'shoving people around at stores and carrying off racks' issue is of more concern to me, but ultimately I feel that it would be on Closet Child to either ban such rude shoppers from their stores or impose a limit on purchases during sales and new release times.