Paying a Premium

Today's my monthly deadline, thus my absence yesterday. In order to meet the deadline, I have to ensure certain things are complete the day before and are uploaded into one particular database, which then syncs with another database overnight, so I can do some other stuff and then make a bunch of content live on our web site on the 19th of each month. So I guess you could say my deadline has a deadline. (And I think I've just demonstrated why there's really no reason for me to talk about my work here...)

Anyway, now that those things have been accomplished, I had a bit of time to poke around the internets. I've been looking for a certain style of tweed sportcoat (not that the temps are cool enough to wear one yet, argh), which I believe I'm most likely to find through eBay or Style Forum, but just to be thorough I decided to take a quick glance at Park & Bond, which is the full-price cousin of flash-sale site Gilt Man.

[Edit: I'd forgotten about the Top Shelf Flea this weekend; maybe Giuseppe can hook me up.]

First strange thing: Park & Bond is selling J. Crew. stuff. I find that very odd; why would someone purchase from P&B instead of from J. Crew directly? And they are offering just a very small selection of J. Crew items. Maybe it has something to do with which countries the sites do or don't ship to?

Second strange thing: the same sportcoat is available through both sites at very different prices. Here it is on P&B, for $450, and here it is on J. Crew, in an additional color, for $278. Plus, it's out of stock on P&B anyway, so even if you were stubbornly insistent about paying 60% more for the same item, you couldn't. But why would you? Not to mention that things do go on sale at J. Crew from time to time, they offer occasional discounts to their credit card holders, etc.

I hope this is nothing more than some sort of data-entry error, but does the fact that it's out of stock mean that P&B has actually sold some of these (presumably to some extremely gullible shoppers)?

Pricing discrepancy aside, I'd think that Park & Bond would want to cultivate its niche on the web as a place to get items that aren't so easy to come by in other places, but their offerings aren't impressing me.