Barnard student Sarah Braner has noticed something terrible within the Buy/Sell/Trade community. 

I may not know much about economics, but I do remember hearing some things about “supply” and “demand” way back in high school. I bring this up because Buy/Sell/Trade at Barnard has become so overstuffed with textbooks and people cleaning out their closets that practically nothing is selling. Surely Marie Kondo-induced closet purging must have something to do with this. To catch someone’s eye, you had better be practically giving your stuff away – the overabundance of supply has caused prices to plummet. This can be great for a consumer looking for cheap textbooks, but to those of us trying to get rid of our shit, this is a nightmare. I’ve seen a marked increase in posts with “name your price, I just want it gone!” and even more OBOs than usual. Perhaps these people really don’t care and just want to clean up a bit, but one cannot help but lament their plight when their post generates nary a comment.

What will it take to restore Buy/Sell/Trade at Barnard to economic vitality? Surely the onslaught of textbook postings won’t end, and for good reason – they’d never sell after shopping week anyway. And Netflix probably won’t cancel “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo.” The only solution is to wait out this shopping week until the textbooks slowly fade and people move on to other Netflix shows. Shopping week will end (…right?), Marie Kondo’s influence will wane (…right????), and we will see Buy/Sell return to its former glory. So, band together, my fellow sellers, and we will get through this.

(Econ people had better not @ me, I’m just trying to get rid of my jeans.)

Despair, who enter here via Bwog Archives