China versus Boutique, Adventures in selling

About a year and a half ago, I sold, here on my blog, some Disney clothes I had sewn for the girls.  They had been worn once or twice and were in excellent used condition.  I wash all of those clothes in cold water, gentle cycle and then line dry them.  Also, we are a smoke and pet free home.  Recently, I've sold more items to larger pages focused on Disney boutique clothing and, well, it's been an interesting experience.

There have been a few wishy-washy people but one in particular really pissed me off.  I had listed a bunch of tank top dresses, all worn once, for a bargain price basically to get them out of the house.  This woman was "interested" in five of the dresses, which were the ones unsold when she saw my posting.  I thought this odd but I don't know her life story.  Maybe she has twins or there are several cousins around the same size.  She claimed to live in the area and wanted to pick up the dresses.  The red flags began popping up right away.

I have this weird intuition and I can read people right away.  So much so that I have amazing interview and people hiring skills.  The tax department at my last employer was large and there was decent turnover, which meant I hired or assisted in hiring many people.  Every person I hired was exactly as we expected them to be.  There were no surprises.  Meanwhile, my counterpart, a guy who ran a similar group within our department, hired several people I adamantly said no to and they were exactly as I expected them to be - duds.        

For this particular buyer, she didn't seem very concerned with arranging details for pick up of the items she said she was going to purchase from me.  We finally agreed on a day (she was currently out of town for a family emergency.  Supposedly) and I suggested the area assigned to internet purchases at the police department parking lot.  She wasn't using her full name but I quickly found it and the fact that she had a two year old girl.  So why was she buying size 5/6 clothes?

So my intuition was 100% correct with this one.  Not only did she not show up but her responses to my messages as I sat there waiting for her were so inconsiderate.  Her excuse was that she was late leaving work but she gave no estimated time of arrival and when I finally said I couldn't wait any longer - I was there 25 minutes past when we were supposed to met - she responded with, "Ok."  I told her I was going to have to mail the dresses to her and asked for her PayPal info.  She waited a few hours but finally gave it to me.  And then she proceeded to not pay and to ignore my messages asking if she ever planned to pay.  I gave her 24 hours and then moved on to next interested.

I headed back to internet snooping and discovered that she is 21 years old and does not live in the town she told me she lives in.  I then searched the selling pages and figured out why she wanted all five of those dresses.  She thought it was a bargain (it was) and planned to sell them together as a lot for a price higher than what she paid me.  Think again, my huge waste-of-time friend.  Think again.

What I've seen and what has been expressed by others is that many buyers expect yard sale pricing on boutique items.  Right now, there are more sellers than buyers so they are able to influence pricing, especially when sellers are willing to let items go for less.

And then there's China.

It all started last year with the same knit dress popping up.  When listed, it sold right away.  And buyers always seemed to be searching for one.  It took me awhile to figure out where these dresses were coming from.  China.  AliExpress to be exact.  If you haven't heard of it, it's basically a marketplace for small businesses in China.  I don't care where people buy their clothes from.  I'm sure half of what I own was made in China.  My issue has more to do with the fact that a dress that can be purchased directly from AliExpress for $10 is being sold for $20+ on pages specifically designed for "boutique" items.  I personally do not consider mass produced items to fall within the category of "boutique" and I'm not the only one as several resell sites have banned these items.

So here's the latest business set up in the US.  You advertise the above dresses at a cost of $20.  You do not have the items so you take pre-orders along with payment.  You then bulk order the dresses from China for half the cost.  From a business perspective, yeah, that's an easy way to make money.  So why don't people just order it directly from AliExpress themselves?  Some say they don't want to give their credit card information to certain websites.  I suspect others simply do not know where the product is coming from.

I can't help but wonder where this will be in a few years.  Designers are saying some of these stores are stealing pattern ideas and producing knock-offs.  How will these sites affect small business owners, specially seamstresses, going forward?  Will China kill the boutique business??