Change My Mind: There’s Still Nothin’ That Beats eBay

On pre-loved pop-ups and runway resale renaissances

Gucci Dionysus GG Supreme 2

Let’s talk about the bag that got away, shall we?

They visit you in your sleep, leaving you wide-eyed and gasping for breath. They attack mid-morning on a random Tuesday at the Costco self-checkout, leaving you sobbing inconsolably and somewhat hysterically ahead of mildly bemused onlookers wondering whether they should cut in front of you in line.

Or sometimes, they come back when you least expect them to. Or, for that matter, want them to. Such are the vagaries of life.

You see dear reader, long before yours truly had gotten his hands on an ultra-rarefied first season Ghesquière-era Balenciaga Le Dix Tote, or before he’d acquired a late-Ghesquière-era Giant Moto Work Bag, or even before his brief brush with an ill-fated mid-Ghesquière-era City Bag that never quite materialized, there was not a BBag, but a saucy little Gucci number that had him enamored.

Specifically, a sultry, slick Tom Ford-era Gucci Jackie, all black nylon and patent trim, the trophy of his very first triumph in an eBay bidding war. A triumph is all too short-lived, however, since the seller promptly refused to deliver to Southeast Asia at the time on the grounds of COVID. *sighs*

And yet, as I encountered the same purse on a recent late-night eBay excursion, I was far from enraptured by its second coming. Instead, I simply scrolled past!

Was it that I had evolved? Or were my attachments more intrinsic to the platform, having had to fend off a dozen other suitors to win that bag? I was, after all, still deep in the trenches of eBay when I fumbled upon that epiphany!

Serious Bidders Only!

Today, nearly $50 billion worth of secondhand luxury goods are peddled over eBay annually, constituting roughly 40% of the platform’s gross merchandise volume.

As of 2021, it’s been offering luxury authentication services, with over 10 million items, from sneakers and purses to watches and fine jewelry, bearing its Authenticity Guarantee tag. Its glossy homepage bears testament to all sorts of lucrative deals, from a taxidermied white ermine that 26 users have viewed in the last 24 hours to white Puma sneakers at 70% off retail to a 2006 white Subaru Outback station wagon from a seller with a 100% satisfaction rating.

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eBay has always been a delightful mishmash of aesthetics. Photo courtesy of eBay

If Kim Kardashian had sold her Cybertruck here instead of her $70,000 “dirty” alligator Birkin, her account @kimsaprincess would have had a better shot at that 100% score than the 99.5% she has now.

Yet, as a pre-dot-com bubble website founded in 1995, first as AuctionWeb and later as Echo Bay Technology Group—or eBay, for domain name purposes—the site’s charms are also its most primitive. At its core, eBay replaced the traditional notion of a flea market, allowing users to compare costs in real-time without consulting colossal price glossaries or relying on face-to-face selling over short distances.

Essentially, the world was now your market.

Circular Fashion Goes Full-Circle

For all its old-fashioned oddities—Instagram accounts such as @ebaybae chronicles, for instance, Prada dog harnesses, Gucci bulletproof vests, and seemingly ominous Sanderson sisters Barbies—eBay isn’t exactly at the top of the resale game.

First, they (and by they, I mean former Vogue writer Liana Satenstein) came for the seemingly superfluous nature of an online buy, even if it was secondhand (and thus, supposedly sustainable): “Much of the time and no matter what storied piece we’re browsing for, there is nothing spiritually fulfilling about this click-and-buy era. Where’s the work of physically seeking out an item anymore?”

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Wisdom Kaye for Endless Runway’s New York Fashion Week edition. Photo courtesy of eBay

Then came the other players, and they came in scores. Vestiaire Collective got its Emily in Paris debut in August, while The Real Real received its own dedicated sub-plot for season 2 of And Just Like That earlier this year. Depop, on the other hand, has become a safe space for the enterprising Gen-Z vintage crowd and Bella Hadid.

It’s really either that or the impersonal interface of Fashionphile.

And perhaps it was to show them all who’s the boss – once and for all – that eBay hosted ‘Endless Runway’: live, shoppable, secondhand catwalks, streamed first from New York and then London, in alliance with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and the British Fashion Council (BFC), respectively.

Curated by the Vogue “TikTok’s best-dressed guy” Wisdom Kaye and hosted by Ms. Satenstein herself for the NYFW installment, and eBay’s Pre-Loved Style Director Amy Bannerman, secondhand stylist Bay Garnett, and model Leomie Anderson for the LFW iteration, Endless Runway had models walk down a circular, O-shaped runway, with a circle of mirror panels tilted outwards for better viewing of the pieces.

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Leomie Anderson at the Endless Runway London Fashion Week edition. Photo courtesy of eBay

Now, if that isn’t circular fashion, what is?

It’s My eBay Bid Against the World

But this resurgence of eBay (although it never quite went away) has been some time in the making—in 2022, the site replaced the fast-fashion sponsors of the reality dating show Love Island, causing searches for “pre-loved fashion” to grow by 1,600 percent and for “sustainable fashion” by 7,000 percent!

And Endless Runway was quite definitively its pop-culture pinnacle.

Archival Alexander McQueen, Grace Wales Bonner’s cult-classic Adidas collab, The Row, Willy Chavarria, Marc Jacobs, and Simone Rocha chaotically juxtaposed with punky Chopova Lowena skirts, Oasis t-shirts, “random men’s pyjama pants”, and to top it all off, a charm-bedecked Mulberry Bayswater à la Ms. Birkin.

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That Bayswater Bag! Photo courtesy of eBay

It was reminiscent of eBay itself in the best possible way: aspirational yet entirely relatable, it put new context to lived-in pieces that you could still shop right from the comfort of your pajama pants—or even better, no pants at all!

And it’s genuinely this context that we live for, the misspelled designer names, the hidden treasures, the stories that break through the one-dimensional flatness of transacting over the Internet. It’s why closet sales like that of Chloë Sevigny or Lynn Yaeger have gained so much traction.

Because at the end of the day, it’s not the no-name vintage mini-skirt or nylon mini-bag that matters. It’s the fact that somebody like Chloë had once worn it to the set of a Sonic Youth video that does. It’s what inspires us to set alarms into the wee hours of the night and engage in fierce bidding battles with a strange and yet equally obsessive online community, forcing us to reconsider how badly we want it.

Because it puts the thrill back into the hunt. If you’ll excuse me, I have a bid to place.

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Dana

The problem that I’ve had with eBay is, despite their authentication process, is 3 bags I purchased from 3 different Sellers, with 98-100% feedback, were all fakes. However, I was refunded after I proved they were fake with a letter from a well known authenticator. Idk, maybe it’s my “luck” and no-one else had this issue; anyway, this was so off putting that I stopped buying bags on that platform.

Anonymous

I bought 6 bags (fendi baguette lv speedy multicolor valentino backpack chanel ocase hermes evelyne chanel flap) from ebay 2yrs ago. Same from sellers (from US UK and australia) with 98-100% feedback. No problem all authentic.
I dont buy shoes and clothes from there because i am always in doubt of their authenticity.

anon

nope, me too, but not just bags, shoes too. these resale websites suck

jiljenner

Sajid, you’re such a good writer. This read reminded me of early-aughts features in InStyle and Vanity Fair, back when both were worth the subscription. I’m no eBay fan (although my husband is addicted to its auto listings), but this retrospective was still a fun fashion read!

Claudia R.

IMO, ALL reseller sites , including those with “authenticators” should be approached as “buyer beware.”

Do you think eBay and other resellers really hire people that know the intricacies of all brands — of course not. And do the authenticators actually have the time to properly authenticate an item worth less than $3,000. I’m sure authenticators have quotas on the number of items they must review per hour.

i’m not saying eBay is bad. I’ve had good and bad experiences with the site. I just won’t buy high dollar items or items that are frequently copied there.

Loreli

Think about who authenticates it. Probably someone quite young who can’t know it all. They’re relying on their computer but no one can see every bag from every designer to compare. And there is no manual put out by each design house for authentication purposes. Bottom line, if you want an authentic bag, buy it new. Can’t afford it, but it at Neimans or Saks and pay it off over a year or two.

Passerine

We know too many people who got burned with eBay. Also there are questions about its data security. When it comes to resellers, there are only two we trust and neither gets much, if any, attention on this blog. The first is Labellov, based in Belgium. Their service is outstanding, their prices are more reasonable than many other resellers, and while their selection isn’t huge, the quality is excellent. They also have a showroom you can visit — but if you’re interested in a high-end bag like a Birkin or Kelly, you need to make an appointment — they don’t normally keep those in their showroom.

The second is Collector Square on blvd Raspail in Paris. They sell online and in their store, plus they have a smaller boutique in Le Bon Marché. You do need an appointment to see the store in person. Bonus: across the street is a tiny store called Ibis Rouge that sells some amazing vintage designer costume jewelry, esp Chanel costume jewelry.

Loreli

Last year I attempted to sell a Chanel scarf that I rarely wore to Fashionphile, I had purchased it from The Real Real.
Fashionphile refused it and said it was a fake. I had to make quite the stink to The Real Real to take it back and get a full refund, well past the return window. I got it but defiantly changed what I buy from TRR. I now buy items I like at a price I’m happy with regardless of its authenticity.

Chanel

I bought a bag from eBay after the seller “promised it was authentic”; however, later I sold it to FP who said it was fake. FP then immediately banned me, from their platform, after 10 years of selling to them with no issues. I had to call and explain that I bought it on eBay, etc. and didn’t know it was fake and then they released the ban. I’ve been selling to them since, but I would have never known it was fake if FP hadn’t authenticated it. Anyway, eBay refunded my money based on FP authentication.

Becky

eBay was really thrilling for me for a long time, because not only could I get rare, hard to find items, but I didn’t just BUY it, I WON it. There was the adrenaline rush of the bidding, the winning, and receiving it in the mail.
But eBay, like so much else, has gone through it’s own ensh*ttification, long before the term was coined. It was awful as a buyer and a seller. The regular individual sellers got pushed out for corporations. Buyers wouldn’t read descriptions of items and blame sellers for it. Sellers weren’t always selling legit items, especially when individual sellers were pushed out in favor of businesses.
It’s a giant disappointment, and it’s sad that no other platform has been able to fully take its place in terms of versatility, traffic, and visibility.

KdB

I hope ebay reads the comments in this thread and takes it all to heart. Most everything here is negative. It’s still a very legit platform with a global reach and buyer protections–but their lack of advertising in this segment hurt them (and buyers and sellers). Instead of increasing their reach, they’ve been dinging the sellers with ticky tack +++ fees for years, driving the smaller ones (with good stuff) away. Attention needs to be paid if they want to be viable in the fashion vertical.

NShap

I’ve had 98% good experiences with all of the resellers listed here. I’m not sure what everyone is buying but when I buy resale I usually buy more unique, less mainstream bags that I would imagine are not copied as often. I would imagine, Prada, Hermes, Classic Chanel and Louis Vuitton would be the most at risk. As buyers we need to educate ourselves on what makes the bag you look to buy preowned authentic and do your homework then you wont be duped as often. If you google search online its often not hard to find authentic images what your looking for and at the very least multiple sites and images of these items and if there is any suspicion then don’t buy it and for gods sake if the price is to good to be true then it probably is! Personally I enjoy the detective work involved in the research and I most definitely enjoy paying a lot less than retail! Please don’t ’pay over time’ for a bag! You’re just paying 30%+ MORE! I could care less about the ‘shopping experience’ that’s to high of a premium to pay to just make a purchase. It’s the bag I want, not being treated like someone special while they take my money. I regret paying full price more often than buying preowned because at least I have a better chance of recouping my money if it ends up not being right for me.

pat

Did you not consider Poshmark at all?

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