I recently noticed a lot of small Youtubers pushing items as well. I agree with you
**Buying from Fashionphile** shopping experiences/questions
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I was looking at two bags marked 10% off and as soon as they activated the 10% off sale they immediately took down the 10% discount on those items and put them to regular price with no discount. 
I posted about this as well. That happened to me a couple of times. It is a very shady practice.I was looking at two bags marked 10% off and as soon as they activated the 10% off sale they immediately took down the 10% discount on those items and put them to regular price with no discount.
LOL!
They do; no matter the sale or discount percentage, the effective price is always the same once you factor everything in. If you watch an item long enough, the "official" price will bump up and down, dip, recover, fall again etc. But the net actual price you will pay is always the same, no matter the special!
I thought I was the only one noticing and the website was glitching on me or something, but then some YouTubers started complaining about it... Then it became clear it was some sort of strategy...
LOL, incredibly shady and dishonest really...
Coach lost a class action suit years ago for misrepresenting prices on their factory items, namely, putting a retail price on the tag that was never the price of the item since factory items were always sold at a discount. I wonder if any of the things they do these days are considered illegal. I have also noticed that at times I can't see everything some other people can see, even when I'm signed in as an insider.
The real coachies track certain items, certain bags that have particular characteristics (glove tanned etc.), which make them more desirable and collectible. Those come from the boutiques onto the outlet as unsold stock. Keywords are used to search them on the website.
Well, there was a point in time, no matter how hard you searched, during sales such as Black Friday, Boxing sales etc. you could not call up these items. Basically they got "shadow banned" or "held back" or "invisibilised" whatever you want to call that. And then, once the big sales were over, they would reappear...
Don't know if they still do that, but that was super shady as well.
BOF article.
Fashionphile Enters Secondhand Wholesale
With the acquisition of LXRandCo., a Canadian provider of pre-owned luxury handbags, Fashionphile is eyeing its next stage of growth as a B2B resale distributor.
Am I the only one who thinks the "overstock" Fashionphile is talking about is bad news for the resale market and the values of bags?
And what is this B2B market they are talking about? Won't that lead to over exposure?
Also, with so many people babying their bags so much as well as buying to hold instead of using them down to the cord, the problem is going to get worse...
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B2B in my understanding is selling to resellers, be it department stores or individual resellers (they could limit it to only certain type resellers)BOF article.
Fashionphile Enters Secondhand Wholesale
With the acquisition of LXRandCo., a Canadian provider of pre-owned luxury handbags, Fashionphile is eyeing its next stage of growth as a B2B resale distributor.www.businessoffashion.com
Am I the only one who thinks the "overstock" Fashionphile is talking about is bad news for the resale market and the values of bags?
And what is this B2B market they are talking about? Won't that lead to over exposure?
Also, with so many people babying their bags so much as well as buying to hold instead of using them down to the cord, the problem is going to get worse...
there are maybe 0.1% of people absolutely want untouched bags, then they either suck it up or buy from elsewhere, haha, just joking.
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This question is not specially directed at you, but I have always wondered about the B2B reseller model. Where is the profit margin? Where are they getting their bulk used designer items from? (Not the geographic location, but the method). It can’t all be new overstock, because much of it seems to be preowned and that had actual previous owners at some point.
It seems like some companies buy up cheap preowned designer items in bulk and then sell them to other reseller businesses for a small profit and then those sellers sell them to their customers for more of a profit. Why the middle men, there doesn’t seem to be much of a profit margin to make it worthwhile, especially these days? Why would the first or second business just not sell them directly? I understand that the first business may not be set up for consumer facing sales, but a lot of these models seem to have a middleman that could just sell the item directly. Rebagg does B2B and now Fashionphile, and they are set up to sell directly to customers. Are these items that are not high enough quality to sell on their site? For Rebagg at least they are selling Hermes Birkins and Kellys in similar condition to what it on their website (anyone can see what they have for sale via B2B, not just businesses or resellers, at least that was the case in the past). I was curious, so I checked out their items for sale a couple of years ago and the prices and items were nothing special, nothing better than regular resale (not 3x retail price, but the same as average deals from normal businesses). Their set-up at the time was that you did not have to buy in bulk, but they just gave more of a discount the more items that were purchased. I’m not sure what Fashionphile intends to do.
The only thing I can guess is that their target buyer for the B2B are small resale shops that mark up prices 3-4x retail, but which are not the big-name resellers either; however these are the businesses that now seem to have big discounts to attract buyers or are just going out of business. The only small reseller businesses that I have seen with very high prices lately are IG sellers, but I never understand why someone would buy a K35 in from 2005 for $15k (or similar inflated prices for a not very “hot” item) when the same thing is available everywhere else (including Fashionphile and Rebagg) for much less.
The best part of B2B is you are selling to professionals, both parties know the value of the stuff, and money in and out is quick and guaranteed.
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That makes sense, no need for employees dedicated customer service, to answer buyer questions etc.
I am quoting myself, because I think I finally understand what you all picked up on immediately.
I was wondering why Fashionphile would jump into B2B sales, because as noted above, the advantage may be less overhead and a pared down selling model since nice photos and a customer service department of employees is not needed for direct business sales. My confusion is that Fashionphile already has the infrastructure in place to sell directly to consumers.
I just realized that the significance of this move is that it probably shows even more seriously then we speculated that their direct to consumer/customer service-oriented/higher-end selling model is not working for them now. Instead of this being a very lucrative untapped market that they wanted to get into (which was what did not make sense to me), it must mean instead that their current model is not working for them at all now and they are trying to pivot to stay profitable.
It lines up with what we have seen in the past few years, where they are sometimes using generic stock photos instead of photos of the exact item they are selling, where customer service employees are very rarely available to discuss a question about a purchase, etc.
It could be the same supply pool as you see on Estate sales and auctions: collections coming from deceased people, repos, pawn shop collaterals... thefts? Ok, maybe not, but those get circulated as well, just watch Tamara Klanic's update video... All of her bags got re-circulated.
What I don't like about this B2B stuff is that it will make it ever easier to drown the fish on fakes and stolen goods. Layers and layers of people between original purchase and you. All of the sudden, provenance is less clear, you cannot track original owners as easily etc. Then they'll tell you it does not matter at all and rely on AI or whatever to tell you it's authentic. But the provenance? Well... The bulking and re-re-recirculation of bags will help in laudering any shady origins.
Should you complain about anything, you'll be shut down with AI expertise.
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