I saw an ad on Instagram for the cutest little dress for my toddler. I had never heard of the brand, so I clicked the ad and went to their page.
“Oh, a small boutique based in Texas. How cute!”
I scrolled through some of their more recent posts and just fell in love with so many of their clothes. When I went to their website, I realized that they did “drops” throughout the year and didn’t have an inventory on-hand to purchase. There were banners all over the website announcing their next drop, so I set an alert on my phone to check it out when their products went live.
Their site also mentioned checking out their Facebook BST page. (Yes, I had to Google what BST meant – Buy, Sell, Trade). Even better! I’d honestly prefer to buy the clothes second-hand. It would make them more reasonably priced, and I could get my hands on some of the clothes I saw modeled on their Insta page that weren’t on their website.
Or so I thought.
Dang. I joined the page (Pending approval. I had to write why I wanted to join and where I was based. Why? Um. To buy clothes?)
And, when I got access, I was floored. Holy moly. These clothes were being sold for FOUR or FIVE times retail. They were being purchased instantly on the “drop dates” and sold PSN (Pending shipping notification. Yes, again, I had to Google.), which basically means people were buying all the product literally to just turn around and make a profit to people who actually wanted the clothing. And people were paying for it. And posting on a search of outfits announcing they’d pay hundreds of dollars. For a dress. For a toddler.
What crazy BST universe did I stumble into?
DISO, NWT, VGUC, No Puff/One Ruff, EUC, NIB, ISO. These acronyms mean nothing to me. I would read posts, but it was like reading something in Latin.
“DISO 2t/3t 2017 release (insert product name here) open to condition VGUC/EUC SF/PF $300 maximum. I HAVE to have it for our Easter photoshoot. Open to trades, though. PM for offers.”
Here is some alternate universe where people pay more for an outfit than I pay for a season’s wardrobe for my kids.
Now, the more I looked into it, the more I (maybe???) started to understand. For a lot of people, there was just the first initial investment. Later, they would then fund purchases of new outfits by selling what they initially bought. It’s the art of recycling, being extremely careful with clothing so it could be worn a few times and then resold. But there were definitely some who are just out to take advantage of people who are convinced they desperately need some outfit.
And still. At the end of the day, we’re talking about clothing for toddlers. Yes, it’s adorable. Yes, it photographs beautifully. But my toddlers wipe their dirty hands on their tummies and pick holes in the knees of the pants and somehow end up with purple marker on every piece of clothing they own. Literally everything. Am I willing to spend a few hundred dollars on an (albeit beautiful) romper and then be stressed the whole time they’re wearing it?
My life is easier by letting putting them on some Cat & Jack leggings and a Disney princess tee shirt and letting them be the messy, wild toddlers they are. And they’re just as happy, if not more (anything with Belle, Ariel, Elsa, or Minnie Mouse is an instant classic in our house).
I’m not judging the BST world of children’s boutique clothing. It’s just a world that I was completely oblivious to until a few months ago. And it’s certainly not a world that I’m built to be a part of.