Remember when the Internet was going to disintermediate everything?
Who needs an insurance agent? A used car salesman? A brick and mortar anything, like a shoe store?
Let's eliminate all those middlemen and middlewomen. If they're not wetting their beaks, we'll all save money.
Buy direct, young man, young woman. Buy direct.
Yay!
And, indeed, the Internet has done plenty of disintermediation. (C.f., CarGurus etc.)
But it's also true that plenty of new intermediaries have sprung up.
A common internet business is flipping vintage or reduced-price goods. While some items may be ignored when they’re hanging at Goodwill, the keen eye of a fashion influencer may recontextualize the piece so they are able to sell it via Depop or another service—often at a significantly increased price. (Source: Daily Dot)
Note: Everyone knows what Goodwill is. Depop is a "peer to peer ecommerce company."
Plenty of the ecommerce intermediaries are in the shoe world, where people have built businesses grabbing up the inventory of coveted sneakers and selling them online at a markup (once, I guess, they've been "recontextualized.")
But it doesn't always work out as planned, as one Florida woman learned.
Ivana Diaz ("Ivi") had posted about some shoe finds she'd scored at Ross, the discount department store. For some reason, her Ross shoe TikTok went viral. Really viral: 2.7 million viewers. (Huh???)
A lot of those viewers commented "how they never found good shoes at their Ross," and even asked Ivi for some help with their shoe shopping.
Which got Ivi thinking about whether there might be a business there. So she went out and bought 14 pairs of shoes and tried to sell them on Depop. She was only able to sell 4 pairs, but was able to return the rest and got her money back. (Turns out, what with Florida taxes, shipping costs, and the Depop's cut, she wasn't going to be able to make much bank on what was some run of the mill footwear from Ross.)
Ivi sounds like she has a pretty good sense of humor, so she made another vid about her entrepreneurial fail.
That post also went viral, which apparently generated a fair amount of criticism. (Surprise, surprise.)
“Apparently, many people HATE resellers and think they’re the worst human beings to walk the face of the Earth (I wish I was exaggerating).”
...“Since the video went viral, the amount of hate I have received is scary. I had people asking for me to end my life and chanting how horrible I am as a human…for reselling?” she said. “I wish people understood the amount of time, gasoline, taxes, fees, and out-of-pocket money I put down to get a return on investment of $20 per shoe haha… but I also understand that people just guide their opinions on the comments they see on screen without doing their own research.”
Hate comments for trying to resell shoes? However unserious the suggestions that Ivana kill herself, however moronic the comments that she's a horrible human, this had to be something of a startling and frightening experience for her.
Ah, the anonymity of the Internet, enabling randos to engage in mindless, no point negativity and cruelty. (What's wrong with people???)
I give this young woman plenty of credit for trying something new, and sharing her experience when it didn't work out.
“Everything in life is a learning process, and I learned some lessons from this experience. Many lovely resellers gave me tips on how to minimize costs when it came to platforms, so I am moving on from Depop and trying out a more sustainable option for my future endeavors!”
Good for her.
She may still succeed - I wouldn't bet against her - but everyone's not cut out to be an entrepreneur of the salesperson variety. Maybe Ivi's thing is being good at social media. Whether she turns out to be a Ross shoe intermediary or not, I hope she manages to monetize her fame, her ability to go viral.
Ignore the naysayers, Ivana. Don't let the bastards get you down!
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