Why Secondhand Is Now Better Than New
Or how the thrift store suddenly became cool
Something unusual is happening in the world of gifting. I saw it during the recent holiday season—and you may have too.
The Wall Street Journal noticed it a few weeks ago. People are now buying secondhand gifts. The sheer numbers are staggering—in a recent survey, 82% of consumers said they’re more likely to purchase pre-owned items for holiday presents.
At first, this seems like an affordability issue. But a journalist writing in GQ, who admitted to buying all her gifts secondhand, explains that this is more than just about prices. Used gifts are simply better—more meaningful and ethical.
In fact, there’s a growing perception that secondhand gifts are classier than today’s mass-produced merchandise. That’s the dirty little secret the big retailers don’t want you to know.
A few years ago I’d have never expected this, but it’s now true even for me. I’ve received some amazing secondhand gifts in recent years—and they are so much better than anything down at the mall.
My brother Dana switched his gifting practice a few years ago from new to old presents—and the gifts I’ve received from him put my poor offerings to shame. These gifts come with a history that straight-from-the-factory merchandise will never match.
Music lovers like me give Santa a five-star Yelp review after finding vintage vinyl under the Christmas tree. Those out-of-print books are also exquisite—with much higher quality than most of the new books I find on Amazon, with their tiny fonts and cheap paper. And old fashion items are especially prized in this day of cheap, disposable apparel.
So you might actually find a better gift at the Salvation Army Store than at Saks. (A passing thought: Maybe that’s part of the problem at Saks.)
As a result, vintage buying has almost turned into an extreme sport—with consumers pulling out all the stops to acquire special items. Many are now accessing the vintage apparel market in Japan, where collectors have amassed classic American items no longer available in the US.
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This is much more than nostalgia.
New stuff is so poorly made that I’m now increasingly buying old items for my own use, and not only as gifts. The quality coming from the large online retailers is abysmal, and my safest bet is often secondhand.
I’ve been burned too many times. In the last couple years, I’ve bought at least a dozen items online that were absolutely worthless. In some instances, the products were just scams—cheap garbage that didn’t come close to matching the online descriptions.
I think the problems started during COVID, when face-to-face retailing was dicey. Like many other people, I switched to web purchasing for almost everything. But I soon realized how much you lose when you can’t touch and see the merchandise before purchasing.
But the problem didn’t end with the pandemic. It’s gotten worse, by my measure. Even brands I trusted in the past are no longer reliable. For the first time in my lifetime, newer isn’t better.
“Secondhand gifts are classier than today’s mass-produced merchandise. That’s the dirty little secret the big retailers don’t want you to know.”
But that doesn’t make sense. We are living in an age of advancing technology, run by boastful elites who keep telling us how much progress is happening everywhere. But my personal experience is the exact opposite—those technocrats ruin everything they touch.
And this total disdain for users has now spread into every nook and cranny of the economy. It’s not just the web that has degraded—it’s physical products too. Even luxury items are falling apart soon after purchase.
According to CNN:
When New York-based model and influencer Wisdom Kaye went shopping at the Italian fashion label Miu Miu and returned home with a haul of clothes he says he spent $18,000 on, he didn’t expect some of the items would fall apart in front of his eyes.
Gold buttons on one item “came off the instant I opened it.” And when the retailer replaced the jacket, the exact same thing happened again. This isn’t an isolated incident. There’s a whole new category of influencer videos focused on the poor quality of high-priced goods.
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It’s especially troubling because the prices of luxury brands have risen sharply in recent years.
But there are other reasons—more ominous—to prefer secondhand items. For a start, you are immune to AI slop, which is now flooding the market, especially for books and music. Technology is empowering scams and frauds at an unprecedented rate.
I now pay close attention to dates. I just can’t trust any cultural artifact made after 2023. I hear from other people who have the same concern. They don’t want slop, and the people peddling it refuse to put warning labels on it. So your only sure way to avoid it is by picking the vintage secondhand object.
In music, older tech also gives you access to analog—which a growing number of people view as preferable to cold and ultra-compressed digital. And there’s the further advantages of owning these old recordings. In today’s world of streaming subscriptions, it’s the ultimate luxury to grab hold of music you can actually possess.
But there’s one final reason why I like these vintage gifts. They send a message to the huge corporations of today, reminding them that we are tired of declining quality and rising prices. We have other options—and are willing to pursue them.
If more of us start buying old stuff, the people making the crappy new stuff might just get the message. That would be the best gift of them all.
Slightly contrary take: the thrift store was always cool.
Anybody who works with tools has known this for years. I snatch up any decent american made tools whenever i find them, bc america used to make some of *the best* shit.
Quantity has surely won out over quality, just about everywhere you look. This is all just so a sliver of the population can get rich. And our inability to pass on a decent work ethic to each generation.
But high quality things will always have a high value. Talented craftsmen should take note, you can make a killing in the near future.
We're trending towards everything being disposable. Thats how we keep this house of cards called the economy viable. But this also has huge implications for our culture and society, which is easily seen already. Wont be long before people are on that disposable list(some might argue thats already, or has always been the case).
And i cant help but notice how every topic leads to this web of shittiness that has infected our world. Cant *imagine* how that came to be..