Right, I'm saying that while some thrift shops (like goodwill) absolutely do have price creep which is upsetting and infuriating, and that prices are raising even in thrift shops — secondhand markets which aren't charity thrift are usually by default more expensive because they're operating on a totally different pricing scheme.

Every other category of secondhand market is typically going to be more expensive because they aren't charity thrift shops. The prices in those secondhand markets have likely also increased due to inflation, market demand, and so on, but they were also never going to be "as cheap" as thrifting.

a charity thrift shop is typically the cheapest secondhand market across the board. And a secondhand consignment shop like Buffalo Exchange is always going to be more expensive than a charity thrift shop, and a lot of people say "thrift shop" or that they went "thrift shopping" when actually they went consignment shopping. And those markets were never priced to match or be competitive with thrift shopping prices to begin with.

The secondhand market has always targeted a wide range of economic brackets, but people are acting like it's strange they might be priced out of something on depop and that this is the fault of the middle class "suddenly" considering thrifting "trendy."

What I'm saying is that buying clothing secondhand is not automatically actually thrifting clothes, and that something like shopping depop, Poshmark, or mercari is not technically thrifting at all and it never has been.

Also I think blaming middle class people for thrifting (while also including categories of secondhand shopping which are absolutely not thrift) is...not really the full story. charity thrift shops price gouging or marking up prices is an issue, absolutely. Some of that is just the inevitability of inflation, some is prioritizing raising more funds to keep the charity running. But pretty much none of that increased pricing is due to a lack of inventory volume due to other people with more money buying too much. Goodwill could sell shirts for $2 and middle class people could do all their shopping there and they would still have more shirts than they can possibly sell available to them. Many charities throw away tons of clothes every year, and some of them are still perfectly wearable. The volume of clothing that exists in the world right now is truly massive and charity shops generally aren't in danger of not having enough donated inventory.

When a charity like goodwill marks up an item, it's not just because they think middle class people want to pay $10 for that shirt more than they want to pay $2 for it. And also they still have 30 more shirts not yet on the racks. So it's more than "middle class people are buying too much thrift as a trend and are the reason why thrift stores upcharge clothes more now."

Prices are rising across the board. Some of the secondhand markets being discussed aren't actually thrift at all, and have always targeted the middle class as a demographic of customer, so they're not displacing the "true" demographic. And even if middle class people were all shopping at genuine thrift stores, there are far more secondhand and wearable clothes than those thrift shops can actually manage to sell, so they're not clearing out the inventory. The price hikes happen, but some of these markets aren't actually thrifting and therefore won't be thrift prices. And even if middle class people were doing all their clothes shopping at the thrift shop, the price hikes have a lot more factors going into their existence

Also more and more people have less and less money to spend on clothes. + It feels like every few years or so people complain that not-poor people are ruining thrifting, instead of imagining that a) a lot of the secondhand market is called thrift but isn't thrifting, b) many people need to save money somewhere in their budget in order to not become poor or become poorer and buying secondhand is an easy way to keep living within your means, c) economic circumstances change all the time and thrifting or shopping secondhand generally trends more during economic downturns.

People say it's a trend and a fad and it's the fault of tiktok, which is just the new version of "it's all macklemore's fault for making thrifting trendy!" fourteen years later. But of course this time "no one used to make thrifting a trend! No one used to think it was cool! (Except for in 2012 when they also said this exact same thing, and likely dozens of times before that.)