Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Yes, daily or often

Yes, sometimes or rarely

No

No, it gives me migraines/allergies

No, soap & deodorant are good enough.

[theinevitable]

yeah, I feel like there is a distinction between say High Priced Perfume and High Priced Gasoline. if all the oil companies jack prices up... you're pretty fucked. You basically have to pay what they ask for. Perfume, however, is not a necessary good.

[Arachno-capitalist]

yeah, I feel like there is a distinction between say High Priced Perfume and High Priced Gasoline. if all the oil companies jack prices up... you're pretty fucked. You basically have to pay what they ask for. Perfume, however, is not a necessary good.

I disagree inev, clearly the perfumistas are colluding here to keep the average alaskan girl from enlarging her perfume collection. The perfumista cartel is the real devil.

[theinevitable]

I mean, that's not relevant, though. Perfume is not something that people need to buy. If they raise gasoline prices, you are stuck because you Need Gasoline. if the perfume is too expensive... you just don't buy it. or else you do buy it, and they keep the price that high.

[littlefallsmets]

They are charging what people are willing to pay.

I completely agree that is how it works, arachnocapitalist.

By my moral compass, however, there should be limitations on that mechanism because it can easily be exploited, easily spin out of control even without exploitation and easily accumulate over a large scale into gross mutations on that theory that can bring down countries and societies.

"Charge what people are willing to pay" unfettered collapses into chaos and totalitarianism as fast as "everyone should share everything" unfettered collapses into chaos and totalitarianism.

Checks and balances to everything or nothing stands for long.

[linnea]

It is Fucked Up because these people on eBay are vultures who are exploiting a very real shortage. It is difficult to get Lutens non-export perfume unless you live in France or the EU. Their eBay shenanigans are like gas gouging after the September 11th attacks, except this is with a totally dispensable luxury cosmetic item and not with petrol.  I paid about $160 for my bottle of Muscs Koublai Khan on eBay from a dude in France. Considering that shipping from France cost about $20, and that it would have cost me about $60 in total shipping costs if I had bought it directly from M. Lutens' salon in Paris, it was a damn good deal. I fuck*ng hate the grey market.

The only person who is authorized to sell Lutens' exclusive line is his salon in Paris.  He won't allow anyone else to sell it, does not sell it wholesale, and does not ship outside the EU. These are people who are capitalizing on an exclusive product and trying to gouge unlucky folks outside the EU who don't have anyone who will act as their liason. The only places that are authorized to sell his "export" line are luxury retailers like Barneys and Aedes de Venustas. Bottles inevitably make it out of the official channels and get sold on the grey market. True, eBay is a place where anyone has the right to sell their personal goods, and (for example) Autodesk is having a hell of a time challenging someone in court who has been reselling Autodesk products online. Their argument is that they sell a license and he is therefore illegally selling copies of his software that he legally bought. M. Lutens has not and probably will never try to sue someone for reselling his perfume a la the Autodesk Hunt's Move, but I hope that he gets a whiff of the huge, untold profits that these eBay fugs are making...and that he could probably double his sales if he would sell to perfumistas outside the EU. There's also a Les Salons du Palais Royal Shiseido site in Japan, so perfumistas in Japan can buy his parfum, but I don't know anyone in Japan.

I hope that none of these eBay fucks will make a thin dime, and their €105 bottles go unsold until they finally relent and sell them at a fair price. Unfortunately, when M. Lutens came out with his latest, Sarrasins... I saw bottles of it going for $310 on eBay and it pains me that some poor sucker bought them, unaware of a better way.

Some things are best left to untraditional markets...but I feel that generally, the artist should profit from their art, which is why I have a huge problem with these fugs on eBay getting fat off M. Lutens' creations. Part of it is Lutens' fault for having such a tight stranglehold on his brand in order to create the "exclusivity" hype. If Lutens is a shrewd businessman, he will sell outside the EU and put the eBay vultures out of business.

[Arachno-capitalist]

It is Fucked Up because these people on eBay are vultures who are exploiting a very real shortage. It is difficult to get Lutens non-export perfume unless you live in France or the EU. ...
 Part of it is Lutens' fault for having such a tight stranglehold on his brand in order to create the "exclusivity" hype. If Lutens is a shrewd businessman, he will sell outside the EU and put the eBay vultures out of business.

So you fell asleep when the professor explained the whole low supply + high demand = higher prices part? It sounds like the real bastard here is your Luten friend who is trying to create scarcity and exclusivity rather than open up his product to the general population. It also sounds like the good guys here are the middlemen who are selling it on ebay to people who would otherwise never have the option to own it. The higher price is the result of low supply created by Luten. if someone has some spare bottles of Luten laying around and can sell them to people who want them on ebay, I'd  be thanking them for the service rather than calling them gougers. No one told them they had to sell stuff on ebay.

[littlefallsmets]

So you fell asleep when the professor explained the whole low supply + high demand = higher prices part?

Again, no. Sounds like she was completely awake when he said this.

But just become something is, doesn't mean that said something is morally or ethically proper.

[smick]

aren't goods usually valued at whatever someone will pay for them? I mean, someone else out there is willing to pay the marked-up price...

That, sir, is the logic of ticket scalpers.   They are low men. 

[linnea]

That, sir, is the logic of ticket scalpers.   They are low men. 

Smick, you get a tiny can for being succinct and AWESOME. A-CAP, that is exactly what I was trying to say.

[linnea]

Again, no. Sounds like she was completely awake when he said this.

But just become something is, doesn't mean that said something is morally or ethically proper.

So effing true. CAN'D.

I disagree inev, clearly the perfumistas are colluding here to keep the average alaskan girl from enlarging her perfume collection. The perfumista cartel is the real devil.

Heh....A-CAP, you get a tiny can for this gem. Bravo. However, I disagree when you're saying that the scalpers on eBay are doing humankind a service, though, by scalping expensive goods.

So you fell asleep when the professor explained the whole low supply + high demand = higher prices part? It sounds like the real bastard here is your Luten friend who is trying to create scarcity and exclusivity rather than open up his product to the general population. It also sounds like the good guys here are the middlemen who are selling it on ebay to people who would otherwise never have the option to own it. The higher price is the result of low supply created by Luten. if someone has some spare bottles of Luten laying around and can sell them to people who want them on ebay, I'd  be thanking them for the service rather than calling them gougers. No one told them they had to sell stuff on ebay.

As I mentioned earlier:
Some things are best left to untraditional markets...but I feel that generally, the artist should profit from their art, which is why I have a huge problem with these fugs on eBay getting fat off M. Lutens' creations . Part of it is Lutens' fault for having such a tight stranglehold on s brand in order to create the "exclusivity" hype. If Lutens is a shrewd businessman, he will sell outside the EU and put the eBay vultures out of business.

I hope that he opens the market...if not... then people are going to make money hawking his shit. End of story.

[theinevitable]

That, sir, is the logic of ticket scalpers.   They are low men.

and

But just become something is, doesn't mean that said something is morally or ethically proper.

I just... I really don't understand how selling perfume which is in short supply for a lot of money is unethical. if there is something people want, and you have it, and it is a purely luxury item... why not charge the most you can? Again, if it were Medicine or Basic Foodstuffs or something, this would definitely be unethical. But, it's not. It's perfume.

[lprkn]

That, sir, is the logic of ticket scalpers.   They are low men. 

They are indeed. Never seen one in a yellow coat though. Chronic halitosis and the shakes, but no yellow coats.

[side_show]

Just slightly off topic: re fragrance... my work place went scent free in September.  It's sort of impossible.  Everything has a scent.  They don't even make a scent free laundry detergent for my HE washing machine, and damned if I'm gonna ruin my $1000 washing machine for someone else's problem.  I know that's insensitive... but seriously.  I'm not one of those people who uses much stuff in my grooming, I almost never wear perfume at work so that's no sacrifice...  but now I'm supposed to go out and buy all new scent free products?  It seems unreasonable.  I've just been kind of hoping the lady with the issues doesn't sniff me.  I feel really bad that she's sick, yet I also feel that this is one of those situations where one can't ask the world to change...  Am I a jerk?

[jaydub]

Just slightly off topic: re fragrance... my work place went scent free in September. 

Surely, surely, surely they just mean no perfume/cologne/room freshener/rotting garbage in your cube.  I mean, coffee is fragrant stuff, as is my shirt after a full day.  Scentless is some sort of Platonic Ideal.

[theinevitable]

no, you're perfect and we all love you.

I accidentally bought a huge thing of Flowery Sugary Shit detergent, and I feel like it is a waste to buy another thing of detergent just because this one makes my clothes smell like Horrible Flowery Shit. I mean, I should be able to put up with this in order to save the 8(?) bucks I spent on this.