Can We Resist the Resellers?
By now, you’ve probably seen the videos of the first few nights of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. Looks like a blast right? Well, maybe not for everyone. For some, the tour is a sore spot, a reminder of their failures at manoeuvring the titan that is Ticketmaster.
According to Ticketmaster, demand for Swift’s long-awaited tour was “historically unprecedented,” and while millions of people managed to snag a seat, millions more missed out completely. The same happened for Beyonce’s upcoming Renaissance tour.
From firsthand experience, I’m grateful luck smiled kindly upon me, and I got a seat for Bey’s New York show, but it was like trudging through the trenches trying to find a reasonably-priced seat. Prices would change at the drop of a hat, even the “nosebleeds” jumped from $50 to $200 within a matter of moments. People reported making it to checkout and having their seat disappear before their eyes. Now, if one wants to get tickets, they’ll have to wade through the inflated waters that are verified resale.
It’s clear that enjoying a concert for cheap in America is equivalent to winning a golden ticket. Why must we meticulously set up numerous devices, like we are hacking into the mainframe, just to see our favorite artists? Why must we run through the rat race of getting selected for a presale, just to end up with inflated ticket prices through resale? It’s ridiculous, I’ll tell ya.
Of course, the phenomenon of buying things secondhand is not new in the slightest. Resellers are the foundation of sites such as eBay and Craigslist, which is how some beloved media still circulates. Whether it be limited edition vinyls, out of print books, or DVD copies of obscure movies, people are always going to sell something they don’t quite want anymore. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, they say.
But, the era of in-demand products seemingly being sold out, then funnelled on the market through second-hand vendors at astronomical prices seems to be a recent wave, and quite frankly, I want off. Nobody in their right mind would resell a Taylor or Beyonce ticket as soon as they get it. It seems that resellers are yet another piece of the pie, as they quite often get first dibs when anything goes on sale.
Resellers have even made a name for themselves. Rather than just being some “rando” who pawns off their super rare Nike Air Max Jordan Nebula 3000s from the 90s, (don’t kill me, I am not a sneakerhead), they hunt for the newest releases, purposefully pouncing on the items they know people will pay top dollar for. They often post pictures of themselves with vast quantities of in-demand products behind them, like shelves of the infamously out-of-stock PS5s, all for the intention of selling them. They market themselves as deities, who have conquered the art of securing the newest, flashiest thing, and have grown a loyal following of people who aspire to collect as much capital as them.
Sites like StockX and Grailed are specifically designed to satisfy this new niche of consumerism. They mostly focus on streetwear, particularly men’s streetwear brands like Balenciaga, Yeezy, Rick Owens, Amiri, and more, and are often based around bidding and negotiating prices. On StockX, one can even see how the price of an object has changed over time, and how many units that particular item has sold within a time period. These metrics serve to build demand and can help the consumer gauge how likely they are to purchase a particular product. As hot sneakers and the latest in luxury brands are frequently out of stock on their original websites, people have no choice but to turn to resellers to buy their favorite items. However, it's only at reseller platforms that these items seem to mysteriously turn up in droves, and frequently at ludicrous prices. For instance, Nike Dunks hover around 100 dollars retail. Why do some people jack it up to 250, or beyond that? I’ve seen some go for around 500.
To explain this madness, it’s a variety of things. First off, hyper-consumerism has taken over. The world population has grown exponentially, so we make more to satisfy that. Historically, we have more free time on our hands than the agrarian societies of old, so we want to have more to fill that time. In the age of the internet, we want to show off these new products to portray that we are on top of things, we are cool, we are likeable, and we are trendy. As trend cycles have gotten shorter and shorter over the years, people’s insatiable need to cash into the latest new craze has also skyrocketed. The social capital that these materials offer us is immense, and resellers know how to capitalize on that.
By cannibalizing the supply of shiny new clothes, positioning yourself as top of the fashion totem pole, then choosing who else gets to partake through price gouging, fashion is no longer accessible for the masses. When you see someone wearing Dunks, gone are the days of saying “Cool shoes, I’m gonna get that!” It’s now “Cool shoes, how did you get that?” Reseller culture has effectively made finding cool fashion pieces a bidding war for the wealthy, rather than an offbeat treasure chest that anyone can tap into with the right amount of patience. No longer are the items themselves the source of social capital, but the exclusivity of owning them through being graced by the resale gods.
Additionally, reselling has become a legitimate hustle thanks to the advent of the pandemic. Due to restrictions on in-person shopping, online shopping has become quicker and easier than ever. As people were stuck at home, they chose to declutter by hosting virtual yard sales through Depop, Poshmark, and more. Online reselling is relatively easy, compared to most “entrepreneur” gigs. One can juggle it alongside their other life activities, explaining its sudden rise to popularity. Almost every third girl I know has a Depop (including me!) But even the thrifting scene has become infected, as more and more middle class people open online stores purely to sell price gouged versions of that 2006 Bebe shirt they found at Salvation Army for $2— now for $35 on Depop.
The reseller plague has taken over, even on an industry-wide scale. Going back to concert tickets, the fiasco surrounding Taylor’s and Beyonce’s tour sales lie in the fact that Ticketmaster has a monopoly on the live music industry. If you want to perform on a stage as a recording artist, chances are you’ll have to deal with Ticketmaster in order to sell seats to your show. Ever since their merger with LiveNation, they’ve become very egregious with their business practices, having leeway to set the prices however they want. A “nosebleed” seat can jump tenfold in ten seconds because of “Dynamic Pricing,” which can come into effect for artists with especially high demand. They essentially act as both seller and reseller by artificially restricting the quantity of tickets being sold at a time and allowing bots to snatch up a large quantity of seats in presale. Their arbitrary fees don’t help their case either, which is why the US Department of Justice and Congress is investigating Ticketmaster as we speak. In such a competitive capitalist economy, a monopoly is no fun. We need to have other companies humble Ticketmaster and bring them down a few pegs.
One should note this problem is absent in Europe, due to their stronger laws capping ticket prices. You can see Beyonce up close and personal in Sweden for a tenth of the cost as someone sitting further back in Missouri (excluding travel and accommodation costs, of course). This is proof that the terror of Ticketmaster can be handled, but those in power have to put their foot down, for the good of the people. I know President Biden would want to see Taylor without coughing up our GDP. We have enough national debt as it is.
So until the feds do something, how can the common man resist the resellers? Well, don’t boo me, but it is simple. Take a step back, and de-consume. Yes, I know the Balenciaga Pro Deluxe 95s are sick, and they’d pair well with your acid wash Amiri jeans, but do you really need them right this second? Will you combust into flames if you don’t put down a mortgage for them? Resellers are only this bold because people click “Buy.” They see the desperation of people wanting to be fresh, and they know that people will pay enormous amounts to do so. But the sooner we agree to not indulge in these fleeting micro-trends, the sooner resellers can become more reasonable. They’ve already been blinded by their own greed, so we have to hit them where it hurts, right in their bank accounts, and make them see.
Of course, de-consuming is easier said than done. Even I struggle with flashes of retail addiction. But it is possible. The urge to buy into the culture of reseller-induced artificial scarcity has decreased in me lately. But hey, picture this: buying things straight from the source, at one fixed price, instead of tap-dancing for a deal with someone with thousands of items in their closet? That sounds like a good time to me.
