Influencers selling their gifted PR goods

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What’s everyone’s thoughts on them selling their PR freebies?

I was on eBay this morning having a browse of Charlotte Tilbury skincare and I spot a listing for the new serum (that hasn’t even been released yet). I look at the listing - and notice it’s from the account of a well known U.K. influencer’s dad! Obviously they’re keeping their name out of it (but everyone knows their dad, his full name is on the account). I checked out the other listings, both current and already sold, and they’ve sold so many obviously PR gifts.

On one hand I think, why not, sell what you don’t need/like (although they’ve sold items they claim to love)... but on the other (more dominant) hand, I think it’s so cheeky!

Why not hold a giveaway or two every now and then as a thank you to your followers? Just give the things away to family and/or friends? Make up a box and donate it to a women’s shelter? Sell them for the benefit of a charity? it’s easy to select a percentage of the sale to go to a charity of your choice on eBay, they haven’t done this once.

I dunno, it’s rubbed me up the wrong way for some reason. What’s everyone’s thoughts on this?

PS: is this the best forum for this topic..? I wasn’t sure whether to put it here or in the Influencer forum.
 
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I think it’s a weird one, mainly because it has always happened in some form. Not to excuse it though. Before influencers, it was magazine writers, models, actors and the like handed loads of free stuff that would sometimes turn up for sale but would mostly end up in storage.

Nowadays I associate flash sales on eBay and whatnot by influencer types and their families to be indicative of cash flow issues. Kind of like the time I ebayed a load of stuff to pay a surprise bill. I think very few influencers are half as wealthy as they pretend.

Ad rates are falling right now and the paparazzi / Gucci / huge mortgages won’t pay for themselves, especially if followers are tightening their belts too.

I think at least it seems like the PR stuff hasn’t been opened and used before being resold. Is that used tester pot salesperson Eltoria still about / have her own thread? Seems to have loads of followers but an extremely low amount of views on YouTube and low engagement elsewhere.
 
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Having been sent a lot of stuff back in my 'insta-days' I can say honestly in the end you just get sent too much, too often and there's no way you can get through it all (mainly skincare / makeup). At first it's really exciting and you are very grateful but it gets overwhelming and then you feel bad for thinking you can't cope with it all. :-/

Brands send you their PR goods not at the full cost you would buy it for too, it's before they add their markup on for the shelves (I think anyway).

Truthfully, I donated quite a few skincare and beauty items where I could, places I knew like local hospices and charity raffles as I didn't feel right selling any of it on! I do see it happen tho :-/
 
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