buy/sell/rage!

This dress and coat are a couple of my scores from my most recent Beacon's Closet venture. I am seriously in love with the dress, it's another one of those rare finds that doesn't need to be hemmed or taken in. And it has amazing buttons and a big floppy collar!



Several people remarked in my last post about their experiences with Beacon's and other similar places, and as a matter of fact I feel like this is one of the few places in life (sigh) where I actually have a valid basis to comment:

I worked for almost a year at a buy/sell/trade place in San Francisco (called Crossroads Trading Co.), and I'll tell you this: it's a tricky business. Being a buyer can be really exhilarating at times, it's sort of like having a thrift store brought to you special delivery. But it can also be really, really terrible and exhausting. Crazy people badger you to take their awful, dirty things, then get deeply offended when you have to turn them down. People demand their items back if you price them below what they think is "fair", or insist on speaking to your manager. And customers NEVER seem to understand how much clothing depreciates. Maybe you paid $200 for that jacket, but you're only going to get $15 in cash for it and that's just how it works. There's simply a limit as to how high these places can price things, and it sucks feeling like you're getting short-changed, I know, I get frustrated all the time, but just try and remember--it's better than nothing! And if you ever have something that's really nice and you really care about, my advice is skip buy/sell/trade and hawk it online.

Anyways, I've been on both sides of these places, and I feel like I've gained some seriously valuable perspective. I used to get so peeved when buyers would pass on things that I would have bought had I been working there, or priced them much lower than I would have (ok, I still do). But really, my advice is: let it go. Buyers have it hard enough as it is, believe me. Ok, phew, rant over--and out!