Thank you for your insight, I personally don't appreciate the reselling phenomenon. Especially because they inflate the prices way beyond what I would want to pay for a finders fee if I couldn't get it myself. It just feels predatory. I LOVE walking into stores to see all the decorations and taking my time to browse through everything, so to make it a race to the shelves takes all the fun out of it for me. Can't wait to see your DIY projects!
goohoo!!!! thank you!!! let me know if there's any projects that you're interested in in particular- I've got one up me sleeve but am curious about other ideas. thanks for the comment :) :)
Last year I really wanted the Bride bust for a personal and sentimental reason, and I thought she was pretty. I didn't find one on this particular trip to Home Goods-- but when I was in line a woman a few people ahead of me had several Bride and Frankie busts in her cart. Obviously all of them. She also had a lot of boxes of Shiny Brite ornaments. And one giant Witch doll. When I got to the cashier I said I obviously just missed getting the Bride bust I wanted I noticed that woman had quite a few of them-- I wonder if she's a reseller. The cashier said she definitely is. She's in here every day sometimes more than once a day. She bought that big Witch for $169 and she told me she was going to list it online for $600. That is scalping! She's not providing a service. I would have found my own Bride bust if I were a few minutes earlier. If there was 1 on the shelf and someone beat me to it by minutes I would say oh well I can't always get what I want and I hope she enjoys it. Seeing half a dozen piled in her cart definitely took the fun out of my hunt.
Oh my gosh!!! ugghhhhh that's a horrible story, I'm so sad that that happened to you. Yes, I can 100% see what you're saying, I didn't even consider the term scalping- I just looked that term up and after some gruesome results that I didn't intend to see.. XD.. I can totally see it. That's so frustrating. If you haven't watched the kiki chanel video you may find that interesting. Thank you so much for your comment
@@HauntedHaven I am older- 61 - and in my younger days they called it scalping when people would be outside of a concert selling a $25 ticket for $50 -- and if caught those scalpers as they called them could get arrested. My daughter died in an accident in 2007 when she was 12 years old. When she was 6 her dance school did a Halloween performance at Fright Fest at Great Adventure. She was the Bride of Frankenstein. So when I saw that bust I wanted it to display by her ballerina dance school picture. I think that's why I was so upset. But---around August of last year I found her! I was and still am so happy. Thank you for listening and for your awesome videos. 🥰
@@lauraann7816 oh my goodness.... Thank you for sharing that personal story and I am so sorry for your loss. That makes it all the more infuriating. I'm happy to hear that you finally did find her! That makes me very glad for you. Hopefully with time reselling becomes less and less profitable and it stops being so prevalent. It seems to just be another expression of the insecurities people feel around being able to find decent and well-paying work, so the larger system also needs to change.
Thanks so much for your insight. I agree with you 100% on all that you said. Buying Halloween items just to resell them is most definitely unethical and just all around wrong. It sickens me when someone who truly loves Halloween and wants a few items can't get anything cause the shelves have been emptied by these greedy people. ( and I am being nice) Hopefully people will wakeup and not bother purchasing these at those insane prices. I would love to see some DIY projects. Love your channel and have been a subscriber from the beginning. Have a fabulous evening! Laurie
Hello Laurie, thank you so much for the nice comment! and thank you for sticking around since the beginning, we've been on a wild ride here LOL! So it sounds like you may be in an area of the country where the shelves were emptied as well? It will certainly be interested to see how this phenomenon evolves- the things listed on ebay are still there as of now! hopefully they just stay up there lol
I personally dont see much of an issue if its being resold for a small increase, but when people double, triple, or even quadruple the original price, i wouldn't call it a "finders fee" at that point.
Another great video. I'm a huge Disney parks person and the reselling issue has hit hard there too. It is just super annoying and ruins it for everyone else.
thank you!! I haven't heard about it in the Disney sphere- thanks for the insight into that world. It's pretty wild that this has arisen as a phenomenon.
I really appreciate this Code Orange series & feel you discuss some very valid & important points we should be thinking more about & aware of. Also very well put together and cohesive. Thank you again.
I totally refuse to buy from resellers. They won’t ever get a dime out of me. I’m not enough of a dumbed down consumer to sit there and pay triple the price for something because someone greedy went and bought it all up. Disgusting behavior. Those resellers are literally the bottom of the barrel.
Love this series. I especially like your speaking voice😊 Up until recently, I was a seller on Mercari. They have raised their fees for the buyer and I just think it’s unreasonable. Anyway, I was selling vintage items mostly and I dipped my toes into retail arbitrage. Not a lot mostly a few spooky mugs. A young women from across the country purchased a mug of mine that I picked up at Home Goods-she was so stoked because it was part of a pattern she had in her kitchen. I had also only marked it up about $5 more that I paid for it. It felt like I was a personal shopper. However, as the next 2 Halloween seasons came and went I saw what other resellers where doing to hard to find items. It creates such a feeling of hysteria. Some people are buying things they don’t even like! Myself included🙄 I just didn’t feel good doing that anymore so I stopped doing any retail arbitrage and I never buy from resellers. I like the thrill of finding that one perfect thing and vintage items. If I decide to sell something I have it will be because it needs a new home. Lord knows I have More than enough!
Hi ! Thank you so much for your kind words! That means a lot to me. And thank you for sharing your story and giving us a behind the scenes look at what it's like to have done a little bit of reselling. Yeah what you're talking about feels to me to be a lot more understandable, and I think this phenomenon has really transformed over the years into what it is right now. It's such an interesting thing how we put value on things that other people value even if we don't necessarily like them, I have totally done that myself. One thing I'm really glad I never got into was designer bags because that's kind of I feel like the ultimate expression of this phenomenon. Somebody designer bags are just fugly!! 🤣 hope your July is going well and I will be back soon with another thing in this series
Hi again!! Thank you so much!! that's really wonderful feedback, I'm really happy to hear that. Congratulations on not buying anything so far, I'm saving my purchases for Halloween candles alone this year and trying to not buy any more home decor. Thank you so much for subscribing!!
Once i was in YC when a woman and her sisters scooped up all the Boney Bunch collections. At the cash register she yelled hit me up on my site and proceeded to say what it was. You could see the disappointment on people's faces. One young woman wanted a specific piece for her wedding cake topper. I wish i could have scored one for her and give it to her. It was such a sad thing to happen.
NOT THE BONEYS 😭😭😭😭 oh my gosh that is so evil to just do that in front of everyone and then have the audacity to tell people where they can buy them from your site!! Yeah there is definitely a difference between doing a small markup on things versus doing what that person did and just buying literally everything up. I would be so pissed if that was my Yankee Candle launch day experience that would have ruined it for everyone there
Welcome back to the Haunted Haven 🎃 Thanks for taking another plunge into the crossover between Halloween and consumerism. What are your thoughts on the reselling phenomenon? What about the nuances of reselling from thrift stores stock?
Last year was really good for embracing the FOMO in a good way. I wanted that darn headless horseman statue that went wildly viral and when I found out they were being snatched up for reselling I refocused to asking myself if I really wanted any of the stuff. The only things I ended up getting were a couple cute shaped fluroescent lamps for my kids' bedrooms and definitely felt great about it in the long run! Btw. I hope the resellers get saddled with all the stuff they get and that they have to drop the prices to below what they bought them for just to have their home back. That's why I only buy from sellers on Ebay who don't have ridiculous prices or a very weord variety of listings. Then I'm more likely to run into a nice old lady trying to make room instead of a scalping jerkoff.
This is a great story! Yes the flip side of examining if we want a specific item is examining how much alllll of it means. I have to look back on a lot of my past Halloween purchases in that light. Some of them I also truly love but just struggle to have the space for and at the end of the cay I have to examine what it's really worth to me to add more things to my home at this point. It will certainly be interesting to see how the reselling shakes out this year! I think people are becoming more and more aware of it
There is a national park near where I live, considered to be the most southern tip of my country. It's located on a beach. So many people kept taking pebbles at the most southern tip that they changed the shape of the beach. The resellers remind me of that. I think the combination of the Code Orange Mania and the Resellers have encouraged retailers to push their halloween items out earlier and that's kind of gross to me. (Some places are putting out Christmas things already. Arguably worse!) While I don't go nuts for decor, I love watching the walk-throughs and seeing if there's anything I like. And let me tell you- the disappointment when I finally want something, and it's gone, is real. A new Michael's opened up near my work place, and they have the halloween items out. It was half sold by the time I got to see it with my own two eyes LOL! DIY is always a GREAT option. I DIY'd some witchy decor inspired by witchy garden themed items that came out last year. (look up moon wreath, and mushroom wreath, or witchy diy in general. I made a mossy, mushroomy moon wreath and I get a lot of compliments on it!)
Wow that's a very interesting analogy. Also sorry for the late reply, I've been dealing with some stuff and am just getting back. But yes I love that comparison. I too love watching the walk throughs just for entertainment, and it's interesting to look at the side effects, especailly those that might not be intentional. Those DIYs sound awesome!! I have a few DIY ideas coming up on this channel as well. Thank you for your comment!
Yes I really do not like the way items are being bought up, leaving nothing behind and reselling for outrageous prices, that goes for anything that is popular, I find it a repulsive behavior that I want no part of.
Halloween variant just made me aware that there are law suits involved with a hello kitty reseller... this is WILD to be doing over literal STUFF.... Thank you for your input and for watching !
Thanks for Sharing! I noticed the hysteria with the giant skeletons, Rae Dunn, and a bunch of HomeGoods viral items! I used to buy a lot of Halloween but I've cut back and I'm definitely more selective in what I buy! Believe me I have had an addiction to Halloween blankets! And I stopped myself from buying one today! Lol! The resellers I wish would leave some behind for others to enjoy, some of their prices are insane Even the prices for the mini potion bottles sold at Target on EBay go for alot ,when they are only a dollar in store, I've seen sellers asking up to and more than 25.00 each!
oh my gosh the reselling from Target last year was insaaanneeee you're totally right. I am completely addicted to Halloween candles, I know I won't be able to stop myself from buying them completely but I'm trying to really limit myself to what I actually can handle and love fully. I think the point for me this year is just to try and have a better eye on it. I'm really proud that you put the blanket back! even if you end up getting it after some thought and mulling it over it's better than impulse buying. of course, resellers make this dynamic worse because they create an even bigger fomo reality when they really do buy it all up.
I agree on most points! I am the type of person who enjoys watching/looking at all the cool halloween decor once it starts rolling out. I don't buy anything unless its functional and I can use year round. Otherwise, I only buy secondhand or vintage halloween items. I also don't necessarily dislike reselling. I think buying products at tj maxx, home depot, joanns, etc, with the intent to price gouge it on ebay is ridiculous. But I do think resellers who buy from thrift shop with the intent to resell with a *moderate* finders fee is okay. And I only think that because everybody's thrift shop has unique items, and its fun to share funky trinket finds! Price gouging is a big no-no either way for me 🙅♀️
Hello! Thank you so much for this thoughtful comments. I am totally in agreement with your logic on this. I'm really happy to have the Halloween shirts that I have found on depop because I don't think I would ever have found these in my local store. However sometimes I do roll my eyes at the prices that sellers are charging for a vintage t-shirt LOL. Thank you so much for your input and for watching!
Love this series! All of this needs to be talked out openly in the Halloween community. Ultimately reselling in a capitalist climate is pretty much always a negative for the common Halloween collector, so I’m against it. Would love to see some DIY videos! 🎃
Thank you so much for this comment!! I'm enjoying doing this series so it's helpful for sure to hear that people are enjoying it. Yes I have two diy things that I am planning on doing once my candle videos are out into the world, it has been a very busy July LOL
I still don't agree with the finders fee thing. I mean if it was something that say was at an antique shop and was valuable okay finders fee perfectly legit that's perfectly fine. But I don't really agree with having a finder's fee on something that was on the shelf. And literally if they just hadn't taken every piece of it off of the shelf, many people would have found it on their own. Don't make it sound like a service. It's not a service that you're providing. You're literally just grabbing all of the stuff off the shelf and gouging the price. That's it
I think if they are in a rural area or somewhere less populated because it might be easier for people to get things, but I find most resellers are using the impoverished as a means to get more money.
@@HauntedHaven Depop sellers went to thrift stores so often that these stores now price accordingly which means poor people have less access to clothing. The same could be said for viral seasonal decor items as well.
@@vvitch-mist20 I noticed that in the past I guess 2 years or so the prices of goodwill went up in ways that made me really scratch my head. Like I used to reliably count on shorts being 3-4 dollars, shirts being 3-4, pants 5-8, and all of that has gone up by a few dollars.
Ok so my TjMaxx, was absolutely loaded. I planned to go back the next week as I was running a quick errand. It was nearly wiped clean of all the cool stuff! I couldn’t believe it as that was never the case in the past. Just a few short years ago you could shop for Halloween well into October, but definitely all of September. I am one that absolutely will not buy them at inflated prices. I’m not trying to encourage that in anyway. I enjoy going out, being mesmerized by everything and buying what speaks to me, not this rat race that it has become. Now that everything is going viral people watch what’s in high demand and go out and buy all they can to resell it. It’ll end up driving the costs up in stores as corporations watch what people are willing to pay and are always looking to increase their profit margin. We’ll all end paying up for this in the end. Just look at BBW’s price increases on their Halloween accessories this year. This is just the beginning.
WOAHH!! Ok that's wild, I've also noticed that week by week the same merch doesn't really stay, but things being wiped clean is wild! Yea it's so annoying that the Halloween stock isn't even in stock in October :( Rat race is a great phrase for it- it takes the joy out of something that should be leisurely and magical. Oh my gosh, the BBW prices this year were craazzyyy people were chewing them out lol. Thank you for sharing your insights!!
I work in retail, the weekend has just started, and the Code Orange crowd is going ham already 😂 I decided to dabble this year and I decided a few days ago that I'd try to get my hands on my first item from Johanna Parker myself, but I can't tell if either my area hasn't gotten her yet (cause I'm seeing reports of her stuff appearing all over the country), or if I was just too slow 😵💫 AND ITS JULY! God help us...
Oh my goodness lol. Yeah depending on what area of the country you're in the resellers might have made it their job to snatch those things up. I'm not familiar with Johanna Parker but I will look it up, I'm assuming that those are some of the viral items for this year ?
@@HauntedHaven Johanna Parker is kind of an omnipresent hit, I think. She has a vintage halloween style that's kind of unique, and most people find her stuff at HomeGoods/Marshalls/TJ Maxx (cause she's kinda expensive). I've gone on a total wild goose chase this last week looking for her (I've lost my MIND but learned a lot 🤓) and found ONE item (and the last one) in a Marshalls two towns away Tuesday afternoon only because a nice HomeGoods employee/Halloween connoisseur told me about it 🎃 And she confirmed my suspicions that I was competing with resellers. I guess one lady in our area arrives almost everyday at HomeGoods when it opens, pulls up Facebook Live, and starts selling 🤢 we have like one HomeGoods in the whole county so... Talk about frustrating 😤
@@mmmchkplss1203 oh my gooosshhhhh you have a LIVE reseller in your midst!!! I just looked up Johanna Parker and I can see what you're saying- I've definitely seen that stuff around. Very very interesting. Man I'm sorry you're having such a frustrating time
@@HauntedHaven yaknow, I almost like the hunt 😂 it's part of the fun, I guess! Maybe one day that reseller/personal shopper person will slip up and I'll get what I wanted 😁 or maybe I'll just have to settle with paying big box store prices for JP stuff 😵💫 saving up might make it more worth it 💁
Imo, the only valuable Halloween sellers are either: selling neat vintage things they find, props from movie sets, or handmade items. Or, if it's an independently owned costume / Halloween store. If you want to resell Halloween themed goods, go for it as long as you aren't buying a "desirable" item just to scalp it. 😵💫
This same thing happens with back to school classroom stuff for teachers! People buy them up and I cannot ever buy them in time before they’re in the Facebook groups for resell. 😢it’s frustrating!
Wait people are reselling and price gouging for teachers??? That is so evil! My sister is a teacher and so I know about the stuff that you guys have to pay for out of pocket that's completely ridiculous and so evil
@@HauntedHaven yes! Teachers are doing it to teachers. I think they think they’re doing their fellow teachers a favor by buying them up and reselling them. But they up-charge for the finders fee way above the price on the tag.
Another insightful video!!! I'm with on being more mindful with Halloween consumption. I also DON'T appreciate resellers, as a rule. I have bought some things on ebay, but only because they were inexpensive. If something is too high, I won't buy it.
yes, thank you for bringing up the nuance. When things aren't listed to a point where they're 2-3x the price it's a bit more understandable. You have to wonder if that seller is making enough (if they're only adding a few dollars) at that point to merit the time of making the post and packaging and shipping the thing. Those are the cases where I wonder if it was an impulse buy.... or they're a reseller but couldn't move their stock
This reminds me of the first year those projection Christmas lights hit the market and demand was so crazy they were being stolen from yards. I haven't seen them for sale or display since but still play around with the one I own.
I was going to mention the Kiki video! I think part of the craziness is the fact that these people are just going into Home Goods and stores like that, and not going to like a flea market or an estate sale. Somewhere that is going to have unique stuff. That would actually be really cool. I recently went to a new flea market in my city, and I was so upset. It was literally a bunch of resellers selling stuff I could have gotten at Goodwill for $3, but they wanted $25. There were also “vintage” shirts commemorating my city, but it was hard to tell at first glance if they were legit because the tags were cut off. Like is this a true vintage shirt or one that you made to look vintage? I don’t mind paying more for true vintage but I don’t wanna pay for fake vintage.
Ohhhh man that is SO annoying!!! You go to a flea market to find unique weird stuff for cheap! That totally defeats the purpose of a flea market LOL. Yeah it is so bizarre that people are making living doing the reselling live thing. Like I find it so fascinating and weird
Woah!!!! Pokemon cards still?? That's wild to me LOL. Also that's very curious about squishmallows. They've been around for many years so I wasn't aware that they are still wildly wildly popular
yes, 2 years ago the candles went OOS sooo fast, like some of them within 15 minutes. Luckily last year Kringle was able to keep all of the scents on their website for at least a day or two so it wasn't as much of a mad rush. I really appreciate them for upping their supply so that people didn't experience that same frustration.
@@HauntedHaven Yeah, I got lucky last year and was able to get at least one of each of the candles I was interested in. BTW... I'm so happy that Coven is confirmed to be returning!
But how do these items go viral? It is so ridiculous to me that someone just posts something and it suddenly becomes “viral”. I don’t have tiktok and it seems like all of this comes from there but like how does it work?
That's a great question and one that is mysterious to me. It does seem that the root of virality is hard to pin down, it's not like literally everyone has the same tastes and wants the exact same things. I've wondered that myself- how does this actually start- but I've seen "viral" used by some of the larger Halloween social media accounts. That's normally how I judge if something has made it to a viral status. If the Halloween accounts with tens of thousands of followers are calling it viral something is happening. But yea, how it gets that status is mysterious. It seems like it could be as simple as a sounding chamber or a large platform posting about it.
It’s like tickets 🎫 touts! Buying up all the concert tickets to sell at a profit. Now there’s thing in place like only 2 tickets per customer and so on. It’s been around for ever.
I've heard people debating on whether or not the stores are going to ever Implement something like that. Basically people are saying that the stores have no incentive to enforce those kinds of limitations because at the end of the day the stores are just making sales.
I am (almost) embarrassed to tell you this, but I LOVE Halloween reselling! It is the most fun all year. I will be waiting for your Kringle candle code so I can get my candles again this year. :)
so interesting!! do you do the reselling or do you shop from resellers? KRINGLE IS SO CLOSE!!! They have some really amazing labels this year I can't wait to share them
Price gouging is unethical, and it is also the way most fortunes are made. If it's wrong for individuals to do it, is it wrong for stores to sell items that cost 20 cents to make for $20? Items that cost 2 cents to make for $5 each? Individuals are easier targets for ire but who is willing to boycott stores who do this on a massive scale?
Yes you bring up a lot of good points. A lot of this stuff could also be taken into a much larger conversation about capitalism in general. I feel like a system in which people feel secure you would see less scamming in general because people don't feel a need to behave that way. And yeah don't get me started on billionaires.....
Regarding thrift resellers: Please keep in mind that only about 10% of donated clothes are in fact resold. The rest is eventually being disposed of by thrift stores because the supply is so much larger than the demand. The notion that resellers are taking away affordable products from people in need for them is simply untrue. Also, as a vintage reseller myself I can safely say that this job doesn't pay nearly as well as people might assume. It's purely a labor of love and - in my case at least - driven solely by my passion for fashion and sustainability, not by my desire for a quick buck. Because if it was, I would be doing something else that actually pays well.
Hi! Thank you for the awesome insights! I had no idea that thrift stores throw away so much. I don't have a super strong grasp of the specifics of the debate, however it's one that I've seen argued on social media. Thank you for weighing in with your perspective! ❤️❤️
I agree and I hate people who resell! Although for me it is kinda fun to be either first in line in a store or up at night waiting for the drop ( I woke up at 3am for Home Depot Halloween this year ). If I don’t get it then I take the loss and I know damn well I’ll find something else I’ll end up loving as well.
Totally!! So even though Yankee Candle hasn't been super exciting for a couple of years I still go out of tradition on their launch day and it is really fun to get there right as the store is opening and see everybody who came out. I feel like that's kind of a community event and there is some sort of excitement around that. But for sure that's a different vibe then going there to fill up a card so that nobody else can buy anything. Thank you for watching and for commenting
Thank you for your insight, I personally don't appreciate the reselling phenomenon. Especially because they inflate the prices way beyond what I would want to pay for a finders fee if I couldn't get it myself. It just feels predatory. I LOVE walking into stores to see all the decorations and taking my time to browse through everything, so to make it a race to the shelves takes all the fun out of it for me. Can't wait to see your DIY projects!
goohoo!!!! thank you!!! let me know if there's any projects that you're interested in in particular- I've got one up me sleeve but am curious about other ideas. thanks for the comment :) :)
@HauntedHaven I would love to see some Blair Witch type stick men, and maybe a wreath? Oh and I'd love to see some DIY candles if it's not too hard.
Last year I really wanted the Bride bust for a personal and sentimental reason, and I thought she was pretty. I didn't find one on this particular trip to Home Goods-- but when I was in line a woman a few people ahead of me had several Bride and Frankie busts in her cart. Obviously all of them. She also had a lot of boxes of Shiny Brite ornaments. And one giant Witch doll. When I got to the cashier I said I obviously just missed getting the Bride bust I wanted I noticed that woman had quite a few of them-- I wonder if she's a reseller. The cashier said she definitely is. She's in here every day sometimes more than once a day. She bought that big Witch for $169 and she told me she was going to list it online for $600. That is scalping! She's not providing a service. I would have found my own Bride bust if I were a few minutes earlier. If there was 1 on the shelf and someone beat me to it by minutes I would say oh well I can't always get what I want and I hope she enjoys it. Seeing half a dozen piled in her cart definitely took the fun out of my hunt.
Oh my gosh!!! ugghhhhh that's a horrible story, I'm so sad that that happened to you. Yes, I can 100% see what you're saying, I didn't even consider the term scalping- I just looked that term up and after some gruesome results that I didn't intend to see.. XD.. I can totally see it. That's so frustrating. If you haven't watched the kiki chanel video you may find that interesting. Thank you so much for your comment
@@HauntedHaven I am older- 61 - and in my younger days they called it scalping when people would be outside of a concert selling a $25 ticket for $50 -- and if caught those scalpers as they called them could get arrested. My daughter died in an accident in 2007 when she was 12 years old. When she was 6 her dance school did a Halloween performance at Fright Fest at Great Adventure. She was the Bride of Frankenstein. So when I saw that bust I wanted it to display by her ballerina dance school picture. I think that's why I was so upset. But---around August of last year I found her! I was and still am so happy. Thank you for listening and for your awesome videos. 🥰
@@lauraann7816 oh my goodness.... Thank you for sharing that personal story and I am so sorry for your loss. That makes it all the more infuriating. I'm happy to hear that you finally did find her! That makes me very glad for you. Hopefully with time reselling becomes less and less profitable and it stops being so prevalent. It seems to just be another expression of the insecurities people feel around being able to find decent and well-paying work, so the larger system also needs to change.
@@HauntedHaven I am very glad I found your channel/you 🧡🖤🤍
Thanks so much for your insight. I agree with you 100% on all that you said. Buying Halloween items just to resell them is most definitely unethical and just all around wrong. It sickens me when someone who truly loves Halloween and wants a few items can't get anything cause the shelves have been emptied by these greedy people. ( and I am being nice) Hopefully people will wakeup and not bother purchasing these at those insane prices. I would love to see some DIY projects. Love your channel and have been a subscriber from the beginning. Have a fabulous evening! Laurie
Hello Laurie, thank you so much for the nice comment! and thank you for sticking around since the beginning, we've been on a wild ride here LOL! So it sounds like you may be in an area of the country where the shelves were emptied as well? It will certainly be interested to see how this phenomenon evolves- the things listed on ebay are still there as of now! hopefully they just stay up there lol
I personally dont see much of an issue if its being resold for a small increase, but when people double, triple, or even quadruple the original price, i wouldn't call it a "finders fee" at that point.
For sure! I am in agreement with that. Thank you for commenting and watching!
Another great video. I'm a huge Disney parks person and the reselling issue has hit hard there too. It is just super annoying and ruins it for everyone else.
thank you!! I haven't heard about it in the Disney sphere- thanks for the insight into that world. It's pretty wild that this has arisen as a phenomenon.
I really appreciate this Code Orange series & feel you discuss some very valid & important points we should be thinking more about & aware of. Also very well put together and cohesive. Thank you again.
Thank you!!! That is wonderful feedback to get. I appreciate you taking the time to write this ❤️
I totally refuse to buy from resellers. They won’t ever get a dime out of me. I’m not enough of a dumbed down consumer to sit there and pay triple the price for something because someone greedy went and bought it all up. Disgusting behavior. Those resellers are literally the bottom of the barrel.
Thanks for sharing your point of view! I think a lot of ppl in the Halloween Community are practicing the same abstinence stance
It would be funny if the resellers never got a buyer and they're stuck with all their crap.
The stores need to trim the return policies back to 10 or 14 days especially on seasonal. That will stop a lot of it.
I think it would be sweet justice!
Love this series. I especially like your speaking voice😊
Up until recently, I was a seller on Mercari. They have raised their fees for the buyer and I just think it’s unreasonable.
Anyway, I was selling vintage items mostly and I dipped my toes into retail arbitrage. Not a lot mostly a few spooky mugs. A young women from across the country purchased a mug of mine that I picked up at Home Goods-she was so stoked because it was part of a pattern she had in her kitchen. I had also only marked it up about $5 more that I paid for it. It felt like I was a personal shopper.
However, as the next 2 Halloween seasons came and went I saw what other resellers where doing to hard to find items. It creates such a feeling of hysteria. Some people are buying things they don’t even like! Myself included🙄
I just didn’t feel good doing that anymore so I stopped doing any retail arbitrage and I never buy from resellers.
I like the thrill of finding that one perfect thing and vintage items. If I decide to sell something I have it will be because it needs a new home. Lord knows I have
More than enough!
Hi ! Thank you so much for your kind words! That means a lot to me. And thank you for sharing your story and giving us a behind the scenes look at what it's like to have done a little bit of reselling. Yeah what you're talking about feels to me to be a lot more understandable, and I think this phenomenon has really transformed over the years into what it is right now. It's such an interesting thing how we put value on things that other people value even if we don't necessarily like them, I have totally done that myself. One thing I'm really glad I never got into was designer bags because that's kind of I feel like the ultimate expression of this phenomenon. Somebody designer bags are just fugly!! 🤣 hope your July is going well and I will be back soon with another thing in this series
Yay another one
Hi again!! Thank you so much!! that's really wonderful feedback, I'm really happy to hear that. Congratulations on not buying anything so far, I'm saving my purchases for Halloween candles alone this year and trying to not buy any more home decor. Thank you so much for subscribing!!
Once i was in YC when a woman and her sisters scooped up all the Boney Bunch collections. At the cash register she yelled hit me up on my site and proceeded to say what it was. You could see the disappointment on people's faces. One young woman wanted a specific piece for her wedding cake topper. I wish i could have scored one for her and give it to her. It was such a sad thing to happen.
NOT THE BONEYS 😭😭😭😭 oh my gosh that is so evil to just do that in front of everyone and then have the audacity to tell people where they can buy them from your site!! Yeah there is definitely a difference between doing a small markup on things versus doing what that person did and just buying literally everything up. I would be so pissed if that was my Yankee Candle launch day experience that would have ruined it for everyone there
Welcome back to the Haunted Haven 🎃 Thanks for taking another plunge into the crossover between Halloween and consumerism. What are your thoughts on the reselling phenomenon? What about the nuances of reselling from thrift stores stock?
Last year was really good for embracing the FOMO in a good way. I wanted that darn headless horseman statue that went wildly viral and when I found out they were being snatched up for reselling I refocused to asking myself if I really wanted any of the stuff. The only things I ended up getting were a couple cute shaped fluroescent lamps for my kids' bedrooms and definitely felt great about it in the long run!
Btw. I hope the resellers get saddled with all the stuff they get and that they have to drop the prices to below what they bought them for just to have their home back. That's why I only buy from sellers on Ebay who don't have ridiculous prices or a very weord variety of listings. Then I'm more likely to run into a nice old lady trying to make room instead of a scalping jerkoff.
This is a great story! Yes the flip side of examining if we want a specific item is examining how much alllll of it means. I have to look back on a lot of my past Halloween purchases in that light. Some of them I also truly love but just struggle to have the space for and at the end of the cay I have to examine what it's really worth to me to add more things to my home at this point.
It will certainly be interesting to see how the reselling shakes out this year! I think people are becoming more and more aware of it
There is a national park near where I live, considered to be the most southern tip of my country. It's located on a beach. So many people kept taking pebbles at the most southern tip that they changed the shape of the beach. The resellers remind me of that. I think the combination of the Code Orange Mania and the Resellers have encouraged retailers to push their halloween items out earlier and that's kind of gross to me. (Some places are putting out Christmas things already. Arguably worse!) While I don't go nuts for decor, I love watching the walk-throughs and seeing if there's anything I like. And let me tell you- the disappointment when I finally want something, and it's gone, is real. A new Michael's opened up near my work place, and they have the halloween items out. It was half sold by the time I got to see it with my own two eyes LOL! DIY is always a GREAT option. I DIY'd some witchy decor inspired by witchy garden themed items that came out last year. (look up moon wreath, and mushroom wreath, or witchy diy in general. I made a mossy, mushroomy moon wreath and I get a lot of compliments on it!)
Wow that's a very interesting analogy. Also sorry for the late reply, I've been dealing with some stuff and am just getting back. But yes I love that comparison. I too love watching the walk throughs just for entertainment, and it's interesting to look at the side effects, especailly those that might not be intentional. Those DIYs sound awesome!! I have a few DIY ideas coming up on this channel as well. Thank you for your comment!
Yes I really do not like the way items are being bought up, leaving nothing behind and reselling for outrageous prices, that goes for anything that is popular, I find it a repulsive behavior that I want no part of.
Halloween variant just made me aware that there are law suits involved with a hello kitty reseller... this is WILD to be doing over literal STUFF.... Thank you for your input and for watching !
Thanks for Sharing! I noticed the hysteria with the giant skeletons, Rae Dunn, and a bunch of HomeGoods viral items! I used to buy a lot of Halloween but I've cut back and I'm definitely more selective in what I buy! Believe me I have had an addiction to Halloween blankets! And I stopped myself from buying one today! Lol! The resellers I wish would leave some behind for others to enjoy, some of their prices are insane Even the prices for the mini potion bottles sold at Target on EBay go for alot ,when they are only a dollar in store, I've seen sellers asking up to and more than 25.00 each!
oh my gosh the reselling from Target last year was insaaanneeee you're totally right. I am completely addicted to Halloween candles, I know I won't be able to stop myself from buying them completely but I'm trying to really limit myself to what I actually can handle and love fully. I think the point for me this year is just to try and have a better eye on it. I'm really proud that you put the blanket back! even if you end up getting it after some thought and mulling it over it's better than impulse buying. of course, resellers make this dynamic worse because they create an even bigger fomo reality when they really do buy it all up.
I agree on most points! I am the type of person who enjoys watching/looking at all the cool halloween decor once it starts rolling out. I don't buy anything unless its functional and I can use year round. Otherwise, I only buy secondhand or vintage halloween items.
I also don't necessarily dislike reselling. I think buying products at tj maxx, home depot, joanns, etc, with the intent to price gouge it on ebay is ridiculous. But I do think resellers who buy from thrift shop with the intent to resell with a *moderate* finders fee is okay. And I only think that because everybody's thrift shop has unique items, and its fun to share funky trinket finds! Price gouging is a big no-no either way for me 🙅♀️
Hello! Thank you so much for this thoughtful comments. I am totally in agreement with your logic on this. I'm really happy to have the Halloween shirts that I have found on depop because I don't think I would ever have found these in my local store. However sometimes I do roll my eyes at the prices that sellers are charging for a vintage t-shirt LOL. Thank you so much for your input and for watching!
Love this series! All of this needs to be talked out openly in the Halloween community. Ultimately reselling in a capitalist climate is pretty much always a negative for the common Halloween collector, so I’m against it. Would love to see some DIY videos! 🎃
Thank you so much for this comment!! I'm enjoying doing this series so it's helpful for sure to hear that people are enjoying it. Yes I have two diy things that I am planning on doing once my candle videos are out into the world, it has been a very busy July LOL
I still don't agree with the finders fee thing. I mean if it was something that say was at an antique shop and was valuable okay finders fee perfectly legit that's perfectly fine. But I don't really agree with having a finder's fee on something that was on the shelf. And literally if they just hadn't taken every piece of it off of the shelf, many people would have found it on their own. Don't make it sound like a service. It's not a service that you're providing. You're literally just grabbing all of the stuff off the shelf and gouging the price. That's it
Thanks for weighing in with your thoughts 😊 I'm in total agreement with that logic
Yes please to DIY videos!
awesome! I have one up my sleeve but let me know if there's anything in particular you're interested in :)
@@HauntedHaven I'm always interested in wall decor as I have limited table space. Anything vintage or traditional Halloween would be nice.
I think if they are in a rural area or somewhere less populated because it might be easier for people to get things, but I find most resellers are using the impoverished as a means to get more money.
Ugh..... I can totally see what you are saying. I actually hadn't considered that angle, it's interesting to think about it like that
@@HauntedHaven
Depop sellers went to thrift stores so often that these stores now price accordingly which means poor people have less access to clothing. The same could be said for viral seasonal decor items as well.
@@vvitch-mist20 I noticed that in the past I guess 2 years or so the prices of goodwill went up in ways that made me really scratch my head. Like I used to reliably count on shorts being 3-4 dollars, shirts being 3-4, pants 5-8, and all of that has gone up by a few dollars.
Ok so my TjMaxx, was absolutely loaded. I planned to go back the next week as I was running a quick errand. It was nearly wiped clean of all the cool stuff! I couldn’t believe it as that was never the case in the past. Just a few short years ago you could shop for Halloween well into October, but definitely all of September. I am one that absolutely will not buy them at inflated prices. I’m not trying to encourage that in anyway. I enjoy going out, being mesmerized by everything and buying what speaks to me, not this rat race that it has become.
Now that everything is going viral people watch what’s in high demand and go out and buy all they can to resell it. It’ll end up driving the costs up in stores as corporations watch what people are willing to pay and are always looking to increase their profit margin. We’ll all end paying up for this in the end. Just look at BBW’s price increases on their Halloween accessories this year. This is just the beginning.
WOAHH!! Ok that's wild, I've also noticed that week by week the same merch doesn't really stay, but things being wiped clean is wild! Yea it's so annoying that the Halloween stock isn't even in stock in October :( Rat race is a great phrase for it- it takes the joy out of something that should be leisurely and magical. Oh my gosh, the BBW prices this year were craazzyyy people were chewing them out lol. Thank you for sharing your insights!!
I've been hunting Halloween channels that DIY! I'd love to get more of that!
awesome! I have one idea up me sleeve already but lmk if you have specific ideas! thanks for watching and commenting
Another great video! You have given me some good things to think about during this Halloween shopping season 🙌🏽🧡🎃
thank you so much!!! that means a lot for me to hear, thank you for commenting!!
Awesome video!!
Thanks for the visit and for letting me know!
I work in retail, the weekend has just started, and the Code Orange crowd is going ham already 😂 I decided to dabble this year and I decided a few days ago that I'd try to get my hands on my first item from Johanna Parker myself, but I can't tell if either my area hasn't gotten her yet (cause I'm seeing reports of her stuff appearing all over the country), or if I was just too slow 😵💫 AND ITS JULY! God help us...
Oh my goodness lol. Yeah depending on what area of the country you're in the resellers might have made it their job to snatch those things up. I'm not familiar with Johanna Parker but I will look it up, I'm assuming that those are some of the viral items for this year ?
@@HauntedHaven Johanna Parker is kind of an omnipresent hit, I think. She has a vintage halloween style that's kind of unique, and most people find her stuff at HomeGoods/Marshalls/TJ Maxx (cause she's kinda expensive). I've gone on a total wild goose chase this last week looking for her (I've lost my MIND but learned a lot 🤓) and found ONE item (and the last one) in a Marshalls two towns away Tuesday afternoon only because a nice HomeGoods employee/Halloween connoisseur told me about it 🎃 And she confirmed my suspicions that I was competing with resellers. I guess one lady in our area arrives almost everyday at HomeGoods when it opens, pulls up Facebook Live, and starts selling 🤢 we have like one HomeGoods in the whole county so... Talk about frustrating 😤
@@mmmchkplss1203 oh my gooosshhhhh you have a LIVE reseller in your midst!!! I just looked up Johanna Parker and I can see what you're saying- I've definitely seen that stuff around. Very very interesting. Man I'm sorry you're having such a frustrating time
@@HauntedHaven yaknow, I almost like the hunt 😂 it's part of the fun, I guess! Maybe one day that reseller/personal shopper person will slip up and I'll get what I wanted 😁 or maybe I'll just have to settle with paying big box store prices for JP stuff 😵💫 saving up might make it more worth it 💁
@@mmmchkplss1203 they can't be literally everywhere!
Imo, the only valuable Halloween sellers are either: selling neat vintage things they find, props from movie sets, or handmade items. Or, if it's an independently owned costume / Halloween store. If you want to resell Halloween themed goods, go for it as long as you aren't buying a "desirable" item just to scalp it. 😵💫
This same thing happens with back to school classroom stuff for teachers! People buy them up and I cannot ever buy them in time before they’re in the Facebook groups for resell. 😢it’s frustrating!
Wait people are reselling and price gouging for teachers??? That is so evil! My sister is a teacher and so I know about the stuff that you guys have to pay for out of pocket that's completely ridiculous and so evil
@@HauntedHaven yes! Teachers are doing it to teachers. I think they think they’re doing their fellow teachers a favor by buying them up and reselling them. But they up-charge for the finders fee way above the price on the tag.
Another insightful video!!! I'm with on being more mindful with Halloween consumption. I also DON'T appreciate resellers, as a rule. I have bought some things on ebay, but only because they were inexpensive. If something is too high, I won't buy it.
yes, thank you for bringing up the nuance. When things aren't listed to a point where they're 2-3x the price it's a bit more understandable. You have to wonder if that seller is making enough (if they're only adding a few dollars) at that point to merit the time of making the post and packaging and shipping the thing. Those are the cases where I wonder if it was an impulse buy.... or they're a reseller but couldn't move their stock
This reminds me of the first year those projection Christmas lights hit the market and demand was so crazy they were being stolen from yards. I haven't seen them for sale or display since but still play around with the one I own.
Stolen from yards?!? That is the Christmas spirit LOL man that is wild. Do you remember around what time that was like how many years ago?
I was going to mention the Kiki video! I think part of the craziness is the fact that these people are just going into Home Goods and stores like that, and not going to like a flea market or an estate sale. Somewhere that is going to have unique stuff. That would actually be really cool.
I recently went to a new flea market in my city, and I was so upset. It was literally a bunch of resellers selling stuff I could have gotten at Goodwill for $3, but they wanted $25. There were also “vintage” shirts commemorating my city, but it was hard to tell at first glance if they were legit because the tags were cut off. Like is this a true vintage shirt or one that you made to look vintage? I don’t mind paying more for true vintage but I don’t wanna pay for fake vintage.
Ohhhh man that is SO annoying!!! You go to a flea market to find unique weird stuff for cheap! That totally defeats the purpose of a flea market LOL. Yeah it is so bizarre that people are making living doing the reselling live thing. Like I find it so fascinating and weird
Squishmallows and pokemon cards are the same in my area. Shelves cleared minutes after stocked and all sold out.
Woah!!!! Pokemon cards still?? That's wild to me LOL. Also that's very curious about squishmallows. They've been around for many years so I wasn't aware that they are still wildly wildly popular
Have you noticed reselling happening with the Kringle Halloween candles? They can sell out fast!
yes, 2 years ago the candles went OOS sooo fast, like some of them within 15 minutes. Luckily last year Kringle was able to keep all of the scents on their website for at least a day or two so it wasn't as much of a mad rush. I really appreciate them for upping their supply so that people didn't experience that same frustration.
@@HauntedHaven Yeah, I got lucky last year and was able to get at least one of each of the candles I was interested in. BTW... I'm so happy that Coven is confirmed to be returning!
But how do these items go viral? It is so ridiculous to me that someone just posts something and it suddenly becomes “viral”. I don’t have tiktok and it seems like all of this comes from there but like how does it work?
That's a great question and one that is mysterious to me. It does seem that the root of virality is hard to pin down, it's not like literally everyone has the same tastes and wants the exact same things. I've wondered that myself- how does this actually start- but I've seen "viral" used by some of the larger Halloween social media accounts. That's normally how I judge if something has made it to a viral status. If the Halloween accounts with tens of thousands of followers are calling it viral something is happening. But yea, how it gets that status is mysterious. It seems like it could be as simple as a sounding chamber or a large platform posting about it.
It’s like tickets 🎫 touts! Buying up all the concert tickets to sell at a profit. Now there’s thing in place like only 2 tickets per customer and so on. It’s been around for ever.
I've heard people debating on whether or not the stores are going to ever Implement something like that. Basically people are saying that the stores have no incentive to enforce those kinds of limitations because at the end of the day the stores are just making sales.
If you sell over $600 a year you have to pay taxes on this stuff. Keep in mind also some people can’t get out and shop.
@@gingerale1861 very good points! There's certainly nuance to all of this
I am (almost) embarrassed to tell you this, but I LOVE Halloween reselling! It is the most fun all year. I will be waiting for your Kringle candle code so I can get my candles again this year. :)
so interesting!! do you do the reselling or do you shop from resellers? KRINGLE IS SO CLOSE!!! They have some really amazing labels this year I can't wait to share them
@@HauntedHaven I do the reselling. The Kringles are my favorites. BBW had the early members this morning.
Price gouging is unethical, and it is also the way most fortunes are made. If it's wrong for individuals to do it, is it wrong for stores to sell items that cost 20 cents to make for $20? Items that cost 2 cents to make for $5 each? Individuals are easier targets for ire but who is willing to boycott stores who do this on a massive scale?
Yes you bring up a lot of good points. A lot of this stuff could also be taken into a much larger conversation about capitalism in general. I feel like a system in which people feel secure you would see less scamming in general because people don't feel a need to behave that way. And yeah don't get me started on billionaires.....
Regarding thrift resellers: Please keep in mind that only about 10% of donated clothes are in fact resold. The rest is eventually being disposed of by thrift stores because the supply is so much larger than the demand. The notion that resellers are taking away affordable products from people in need for them is simply untrue. Also, as a vintage reseller myself I can safely say that this job doesn't pay nearly as well as people might assume. It's purely a labor of love and - in my case at least - driven solely by my passion for fashion and sustainability, not by my desire for a quick buck. Because if it was, I would be doing something else that actually pays well.
Hi! Thank you for the awesome insights! I had no idea that thrift stores throw away so much. I don't have a super strong grasp of the specifics of the debate, however it's one that I've seen argued on social media. Thank you for weighing in with your perspective! ❤️❤️
I agree and I hate people who resell! Although for me it is kinda fun to be either first in line in a store or up at night waiting for the drop ( I woke up at 3am for Home Depot Halloween this year ). If I don’t get it then I take the loss and I know damn well I’ll find something else I’ll end up loving as well.
Totally!! So even though Yankee Candle hasn't been super exciting for a couple of years I still go out of tradition on their launch day and it is really fun to get there right as the store is opening and see everybody who came out. I feel like that's kind of a community event and there is some sort of excitement around that. But for sure that's a different vibe then going there to fill up a card so that nobody else can buy anything. Thank you for watching and for commenting