Selling in place: the home as virtual storefront

Abstract

In this themed section, we consider the ways that Covid-19 shelter-in-place orders impacted, and continue to impact, small retailers that sell niche goods like vinyl records, vintage clothing, and handcrafted items in urban areas within the United States. Now more than ever -as storefront businesses have had to shift their inventories exclusively online -sellers' homes and small shops act as warehouses and staging areas for photographing, packing, and shipping merchandise. Members of what we term the digital vintage economy, many of whom are women, navigate additional domestic and reproductive workloads at the same time they engage in new forms of home-based selling labor. Platform labor builds on a long history of inequalities and exploitation related to racial capitalism, and even if some consumer experiences can return to "normal" after shelterin-place orders end and the vaccine is distributed, many labor practices forged during this period will likely continue on as before. In many respects, the forms of labor described in these essays began before the pandemic and will continue to have reverberations in a post-Covid context.

Introduction: Second-hand Cultures in Unsettled Times

“…Another key element of this theme revolves around the ethics of sourcing, reselling and pricing for second-hand resellers who spoke at the Symposium, including A. Cleopatra, of Vinted, and Depop, for example, have made these dynamics even more lurid and mobile (Lifter 2021;Ayres 2022). Such changes direct us to thinking about second-hand labour: from tactile, intimate (re)making, design, and craft, to rethinking shopping as work (Ayres 2019), to understanding the politics of digital labour in reselling and ecommerce (Kneese and Palm 2020;Kneese et al 2022), to broader issues of working conditions, organising, health, wellbeing and justice in second-hand circuits and disposal chains around the world. Who makes money from these cultures and economies?…”

Makeover welfare: Mary, Queen of Charity Shops and the cultural politics of second-hand under austerity

“…, as resources for constructing punk, grunge, 'indie', and queer styles(Le Zotte 2017, p. 215-216;Lifter 2019;McRobbie 1989); and as reselling depots, to trawl for vinyl records, photography equipment, books, clothes, ceramics, jewellery, etc (Podkalicka and Meese 2012;Botticello 2012Botticello , 2013Ayres 2019;Kneese et al 2022)…”