Have you ever found an absolute steal online, purchased it, only to get messaged by the seller saying “sorry I have to cancel the order”? This happens all the time, and it is usually because someone else has swooped in and messaged the seller telling them that they will pay more than the original price and to cancel the order. There have even been many stories where people have lost friends and respect for others because of things like this.

Let’s look at it in more detail:

A buyer finds an absolute steal for a t-shirt online. The seller obviously doesn’t know what they have, but has listed it at an extremely cheap price that they deemed was reasonable for the shirt. A vintage buyer sees this steal, and immediately purchases the item for the original seller. This happens every day on platforms like Ebay, Depop and Poshmark. Rap tees, band tees, marvel tees can go for as cheap as 10 dollars for a t-shirt that is worth thousands to collectors. Now here’s where the ethics issues come in.

When something like this happens, multiple buyers who missed out on the steal will flood the seller with messages. For example, if an item was sold for $10, other vintage buyers may message the seller saying “hey, can you please cancel the original order? Ill give you $100 for the shirt”. The original buyer, usually happy that they are receiving higher offers than what they originally listed it for, will cancel the order to make more money on the sale. This leaves the original vintage buyer disappointed that they missed out on the steal of a lifetime, and rightfully, bitter that someone else in the vintage community essentially stopped the sale from happening.

From here there are two different views on the situation. You have people who believe that it is wrong for butting in on the sale and ruining the original transaction to try and gain access to the original item. You also have people who are the ones sending these messages to the original seller, not really caring about any perceived ethics within the community and are just looking to come up on a steal or grail item. Those who agree on a set form of ethics within the vintage community will tell you that its bad business to message a seller after the item has been sold and offer them more money for an item. They may even agree that you shouldn’t message a seller at all knowing that they have already cancelled an order to another vintage buyer. However, others will tell you that “it is what it is” and that they are just playing the game like everyone else does, doing “whatever it takes” to find deals.

I personally think these people and many others in the community perceive vintage as incredibly rare, almost like antiques. And in some cases this is very true. A pair of 1920 Levi’s Jeans are going to be MUCH harder to come across a second time than a band tee. This doesn’t make it right, but we can understand why people would try and take someone’s steal. When we see a steal, theres such an immense feeling of FOMO, and I think this is a main driver in why people snipe and sabotage other peoples deals. When people feel that something is already scarce, they will do whatever it takes to make sure they don’t miss out. Add a layer of anonymity through the internet and social media, and its incredibly easy to act a little unethical when the stakes are low. Additionally, reselling vintage has become many peoples main source of income. So when money is on the line, of course some people are gonna try and swoop in to try and make extra money that they may have missed out on.

Obviously, we don’t want the vintage space to become a place where people feel like its “dog eat dog” and every man/woman for themselves, because that’s not what its like. At the end of the day, THERE IS ENOUGH VINTAGE FOR EVERYONE. We can’t stress this enough. Yes of course there are some items you may never see again, but missing out a few hundred dollar profit won’t ruin your life or business. Every person who has been in the vintage game has come up on steals and missed out on their fair share of steals. Its just a matter of time. Competition will always increase, its the unfortunate nature of business.

At the end of the day, Vintage has brought together people of different cultures and backgrounds and has created a community full of amazing people. Will there be some bad apples in the group? Of course. But what we can do is continuing to work towards creating an environment that uplifts other community members instead of trying to take from them. Behind every IG account and profile name, theres a real person who loves buying shirts and vintage just as much, if not more, than you do.

Unfortunately, this problem will always be around. Is there anything we can do to fix it? What are your thoughts on this issue? Let us know in the comments or on Instagram!