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Monica Gatens spent more than a decade selling as many four-figure Chanel flats as she could as an employee of Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdale's. Only, she competed with other salespeople for the hottest items, and there were never enough shoes or bags to go around. Combined with frequently changing commission structures, her pay was "awful," she said.

But she noticed something about her clients. Around a third of them weren't even shopping for themselves. They were "sourcers," ferreting out Chanel for their own roster of buyers willing to pay a premium to bypass the hassle of shopping.

"They would tell me how much they made. And I'm like, Wait a minute, I feel like that's basically what I'm doing, but I can't charge a fee because I'm working for Saks," she said.

So she left to start her own sourcing business in March, just before Matthieu Blazy's first Chanel collection hit stores. As a retail veteran, she already had a network of contacts at department stores. Just as she’d been happy to sell to sourcers, they've been happy to sell to her. Sourcers pay fast and rarely return, which is ideal for retail workers who have to hand pieces over to another salesperson if they don’t sell them fast.

This sourcing industry benefits from two things: a shopping experience that even the wealthiest buyers find terribly unpleasant and struggling retailers that don’t pay employees enough. Rather than brands like Chanel shutting down sourcers, they are incentivized to tolerate them, even if it means offending some of their best clients. The result is a luxury shopping ecosystem that’s become more gamified and stratified than ever before. The best way to win, whether shopping at boutiques or through third parties, is to have money to throw at the problem.

Clients who want to shop for themselves are fed up with all of this. "I hate the sourcers," one told me.