To begin with, Nike, Adidas, Puma and Air Jordan are the brands that are popular or “were” popular for a long time. But lots of people may not know that Street culture becomes more and more popular nowadays. Hundreds of popular “street-wear” brands pop up in front of consumers such as Supreme, Noah, Bape and so on. All these brands are related to Street culture, and people called it Hip-Hop fashion (Cutler 1), and it has lots of young fans. In the meantime, people are creating new businesses that follow up with street culture called “re-sell” business. These businessmen are reselling a new product rather than second-hand product nowadays, they try to buy the product through a regular retail store and then sell it with a higher price right after they walk out from the store. The main problem is resellers sell products at an unfair price but still unlimited consumers are waiting to buy these products from these resellers. This phenomenon exists based on the high demand of different products versus low supply from different companies. Thus, “reselling” is growing fast, but it is harmful to the young generation’s consumption behavior by creating a bad consumer market, misleading young people’s common sense of consumption, developing lazy consumers and even changing the young generation’s tastes. 

First thing first, most parents are not familiar with these “hype” brands, but their kids are acquainted with all different kinds of street brands. For example, Supreme is one of the most popular street wear brands that created by Americans back in 1994. There are only 10 stores around the world, with some people are calling Supreme as “Street Chanel.” (Alex) More and more kids try to wear Supreme clothes and use their other products. However, Supreme products are limited, which means most kids can’t get them through a regular way with retail prices if they didn’t get in a “line” ahead. There is a fact, Supreme releases new products every Thursday, and people line up in front of the store on Wednesday night. Crowds do not always mean something good. Lining up caused a huge problem once back in 2014. Supreme was releasing a new sneaker which collaborated with Nike, and the huge crowd caused the NYPD to shut down releasing this sneaker (Samaha). At the same time, the police found out most of the people who got in line were under 21. 

Second, Complex is a company which interviews people who buy Supreme or who resell Supreme. Then, Complex interviews one of the biggest resellers in New York, which lets people have a better understanding how this underground market looks and how it works (Sanchez). The author said most of resellers are unemployed, even some resellers were homeless. Resellers doing business outside the store using cash only, which mean they are doing “tax-free” business. The enormous profit out of reselling attracts lots of people to this industry. However, this is not a good thing for the economic environment. If people are trading without paying any tax, they are actually breaking the law during resell trades. At the same time, if you are consuming in this resale market, resellers are not going to pay any responsibilities. By the way, even if resellers sell you something fake, you can’t protect your benefits from the law. Then, the resell market grows stronger vertically; there is research saying that $1 billion already flows in the sneaker resell market. (Weinwig) However, this is a guess; people will never know exactly how much money is being traded inside the entire resell market. Young people are still learning how to make the right decisions, but the resell market is hurting them in some way. Illegal trade, not being financially responsible or even selling fake products are all problems that may happen inside the resell market. To sum up, resell behavior changes the normal market into an unhealthy resell market. This resell market provides a bad consumption environment for the young generation.

In addition to providing a bad consuming market, reselling also passes this negative influence on to young people’s sense of consumption. Back in the old days, people believed quality was the major factor that decided how much a product should cost. Conversely, young people think brand image and even the popularity are the reasons that decide how much a product should cost nowadays. For example, young people in Korea are more willing to purchase a fashion product than anything else. (Lee) People are willing to purchase more fashion items because these products become more valuable in the young Korans’ market sense. Adults care more about the price when they try to purchase a product, because they know it is hard to earn money. But kids don’t have jobs, they consume based on how much they like the product. Human beings’ daily necessities are food and sleep, which keep you alive. Nevertheless, kids consider buying clothes as their daily necessities. Most teenagers do not worry about anything that supports their living; their parents take care of their daily life. Most kids don’t need to pay for their own meals, and they can ask for money from their parents to buy anything they want. This is creating opportunities for all the resellers, because kids are never worried about the unfair price as long as they can afford it. Meanwhile, as online shopping is becoming more popular, some people start to question, do people need these goods? Is paying $350 for a T-shirt necessary? In the 21st century, people spend their money online. There is a journal that talked about Chinese selling products online, and they are selling their products from Taiwan to anywhere around the world (Hsunchi). People can buy anything from anywhere through websites, unluckily, fake products show up on the internet. Most teenagers are good at shopping online, but most of them can’t afford every resale product. So, some kids still try to buy some hype brand products that have cheaper price tags; they are willing to take the risk even if some of the products are fake. In personal experience, I have bought fake sneaker before, but I had no idea after I got the sneaker. Because it is so hard to distinguish if a seller legit or not if you try to buy a product online. Meanwhile, purchasing online is way easier than purchasing in store, people can easily access to any product in anywhere by clicking the mouse. Therefore, they become less alertness when they spend money online. But at the same time, there are more and more website reselling Sneakers, hype brand clothing. It is becoming a bad habit for all the teenagers, they think buying is an easy action that can bring huge satisfaction, but they are easily scam by bad sellers too. Therefore, they are losing their right common sense of consumption by doing the trade with resellers online.

After talking about some young generation’ new common sense of consumption. Being lazy consumers is a problem that exists nowadays when people are trading in the resell market. Nowadays, the young generation is more actively shopping online compared to going out shopping. Conversely, Young people are supposed to walk out and be active when they are young, especially when they are going to shop. There is a research study said, that more than 79% American people shop online nowadays. (Perez) It doesn’t mean that only 21% of Americans are going to the mall and shopping, but it still means that a large percentage of Americans do their shopping online. This data reflects that there is a larger percentage of consumption made through online compared to before. People know that they need to pay more for delivery when they shop online, and they always need to wait for couple days for delivery. But people are still choosing to shop online, they choose to spend money that “paying” for their laziness. Businessmen who work in resell market see the future of the young consumers. Young people are willing to shop online rather than go out and shop, therefore, there are more and more resellers starting their business through the internet. For example, StockX, GOAT and Stadium goods are all the great resell companies. They are collecting products from resellers who bought products through retail, and then resell them to all the consumers. Companies are trying to persuade young people that purchasing through their channel is the best way to spend their money, and it works out very well. Base on the TPB’ theory, sellers’ attitude to buyers’ behavior is the main principle if buyers are willing to spend their money (Han). Unfortunately, most of hype brands do not care about consumers’ opinion after they made a sold, for example, Anti-Social Club is one of the popular brands, they don’t care if people complain about the delay of their clothes that they have purchased. Something crazy about this brand is consumers didn’t get their purchase over 2 months, even though company were promise that 14-21 days’ delivery. However, this issue will never happen in reselle market, resellers are not only care how much this client is paying for this product but also making sure this client will come back for another product. Resellers are trying their best to get any products for their client as long as client pay for the right price, and most of the clients are lazy to buy products themselves. Most of the young generation are easy to negotiate, Air Jordan, Supreme, Yeezy are the best brands for them. They are willing to pay for resellers who can get these products for them, because they don’t want to go out and get in the line for anything. Therefore, they are offering unlimited desired even before the product release. So, most of young people are just waiting for products to release and then buy it from resellers rather than go shopping themselves. On the other hand, because there are too many resellers exist in the market, even they go lining up for anything that release, they have no chance to get it by competing to all the professional resellers. 

After that, back to hundreds of years ago, different countries kept their own culture and similar taste of appreciation because people could only approach to the things or style that close to them. However, the Internet is a great invention the near twenty years, it makes people easily access to anything that happen around the world. In a result, all the kids are having similar understanding of fashion trend because they are watching the same movie, listening the same music or even judging the same global issue. Thus, their tastes are altering soundlessly. For example, Kanye West’ songs are popular, the brand yeezy that he designed becoming famous as well; Kobe Bryant is one of the best player in NBA, the basketball shoe that he represents become one of the most popular basketball shoe too. Even the biggest reseller admitted that consumers care more about who has worm this cloth before or who represent which brand (Karizza). Most of kids are lack of ideas or thoughts of their own, they are always following their parents when they were child, following the friends when they grew up. Young people are behaving as same as others do, they talk as same as others do, they even wear the same cloth that others do. Therefore, teenagers are the group of people who are hard to resist any attractions from outside world; and that is the reason why American law states that teenagers are not allow to drink or smoke. Kids don’t know how to define value, and some of them still trying to take shape of their taste. So, it is incorrect that some young people believe that some products are better than others because their resale price are higher than their retail price. Even though most of consumers understand that a pair of shoe cost only $60, but they are still willing to buy it with $500 from resellers; because they know this shoe will worth more than $600 in the resell market a week later. Which means people understand they own a shoe that worth a lot more than how much they pay for it. On the other hand, some young people believe this reseller is a great career at present. Some high school kids even drop out from the school in order to become a reseller. Even though some of the young kids are earning money from doing resell, but they are the minority of all the young resellers. No matter what job you are going to work on, dropping out from high school is always a wrong decision. To sum up, Young people’ tastes are changing as the consumption mode is changing. More and more people consume in resell market, their tastes are influencing everyone else at the same time.

The last but not the least, reselling industry creates a bad market for young people; young generation changes their common sense of consumption after they involve in the resell market; teenagers become lazier when they shop through reselling online; resellers are changing young people’ tastes when they promote their resale products. Which are all the phenomenon existing in the market, and these are all reflecting negative influences toward young consumers. Resell market is developing stronger without questioning at present; however, young people are still need to be more careful that they are highly possible influenced negatively if they are caught in the resell market. 

Finally, teenagers should come up a conclusion after they will suffer the losses of purchasing resale products in the near future. And they are not chasing the fashion by wearing all different hype brand clothes or cool sneakers, but wasting their time and their parents’ money. Hence, young generation should be clear about how to judge resell industry, knowing what is right and what is wrong. Being considerate, being smart when you try to spend money on outfits in the resell market. Being aware how much this product is truly worth, and being stricter about spending money because you always realize that there are always some clothes you had never wear after you bought it.
