From New York Times: This holiday season, many high-end gifts will come with an unlikely provenance: a previous owner.
For a growing number of shoppers, the stores and websites that specialize in upscale resale goods have become a reliable source for luxury gifts like designer handbags and jewelry that may have a little wear and tear but are comparatively well priced.
“If there was a stigma, maybe 10 years ago, and it was more difficult to gift someone something secondhand, today that is becoming completely mainstream and normal,” said Claudia Ricco Raichand, the founder and chief executive of Rewind Vintage Affairs, a London-based online retailer that specializes in pre-owned items by high-end designers.
On Wednesday, Rewind is planning a pop-up shop in Paris’s affluent Eighth Arrondissement. It will be inside Modes, one of a chain of luxury fashion boutiques, and is to offer a specially chosen assortment including hard-to-find handbags from brands like Chanel. Similarly, bags from Louis Vuitton will be included in a seasonal selection that Rewind is putting together for the fashion website Farfetch. “The more rare pieces are definitely the ones that make it onto Santa’s wish list,” Ms. Ricco Raichand said.
Traditionally the holiday season, retail’s strongest period, has been comparatively slow for retailers specializing in luxury resales. But clearly that has been changing, and they hope that this year will be their most successful to date.
At Poshmark, a California-based online resale retailer, sales of jewelry priced at more than $500, including brands like Van Cleef & Arpels and Tiffany & Company, increased nearly 60 percent during November and December 2020 compared with the same months in 2019. And the retailer’s sales of Hermès accessories like scarves, ties and belts in the same period rose more than 25 percent year-over-year.
At the RealReal, which sells used designer items online and at 15 retail stores in the United States, the sale of gift boxes for purchased items — something that certainly could indicate “gift” — rose 60 percent from Oct. 25 to Dec. 25, 2020, compared with the same period in 2019. And sales of the Louis Vuitton Monogram Neverfull GM Chic, a roomy tote that many consider a practical gift, rose more than 20 percent year over year during the same period.
With the growing demand in mind, the RealReal introduced a 30-second holiday commercial that has aired on cable TV networks like CNN and Bravo, and is available online. It begins with a stylishly dressed woman in a dramatic jeweled choker enthusiastically lifting a pink feathery Bottega Veneta handbag out of a large box and includes a mix of happy people showing off their new items as the voice-over says, “All I want for Christmas is Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Prada, Rolex, Cartier,” as those names appear on the screen.
The online retailer 1stdibs, which includes pre-owned goods in its upscale mix, is promoting seasonal gift shopping, too. A recent pop-up ad on Instagram proclaimed, “There’s only one place for exceptional holiday gifts,” above an image of a large vintage Louis Vuitton trunk and an orange Hermès bag.
Industry observers say several factors have made consumers feel more comfortable about buying used luxury goods and receiving them as gifts, particularly the assurance that items are genuine. “Being able to authenticate product, it changes the dynamic,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry adviser for the NPD Group, a market research company. “It gives the consumer the confidence that there is some sense of realism to some of these things.”
Some resale retailers also promote the environmentally responsible side of buying used items, as a way to avoid the pollution and materials that go into making something new. “It’s kind of this badge of honor now to shop sustainably and give that way,” said Rati Sahi Levesque, the RealReal’s president.
And then there is the process of finding resale items, which takes a bit more digging than simply buying new pieces off the rack. “You have to hunt and gather to find these things,” said Christos Garkinos, a veteran luxury resale dealer in Los Angeles. “It’s not something that you can go in and just find — there’s a lot of thought into finding a gift like this.”
Cécile Caron, who lives in Wimereux, a French coastal town not far from Calais, agrees. Last Christmas, she gave her teenage daughter a small Gucci handbag in a style she had not seen previously, purchased at a Paris secondhand store for 250 euros ($290).
“You find something really very personal and rare,” Ms. Caron said about shopping resale. At a recent online auction, she bought two Augis gold medallions that can be worn as pendants, and intends to give them to a friend this Christmas.
Still, for most shoppers, the most compelling benefit of choosing pre-owned goods is the price: Previously worn designer items that are considerably cheaper than new versions are easy to find, especially on the internet.
Prices vary by condition, but, as an example, a selection of gold Cartier Love bracelets recently were priced at about $6,000 each on 1stdibs, about $1,500 less than similar styles on Cartier’s site.
Shoppers like Ann Bamesberger, an executive at a medical research company who lives in Palo Alto, Calif., enjoy those deals. Last year, she bought a resale Hermès scarf for a friend from the RealReal for about $150, around a third of its retail price. The recipient, she said, “was so thrilled.”
Ms. Bamesberger, who is fond of brands like Gucci and Bottega Veneta, said she liked to receive resale gifts from her friends, who tend to spend a couple hundred dollars on each other’s gifts. “I’d rather do the brand and have it be gently used and get something that I love,” she said.
But buying from the resale market is, like so many things, affected by supply and demand. “You can raise the prices more during the holiday season, and people will buy it,” said Paola Tapia, an independent luxury authenticator based in Atlanta who also sells previously owned designer items on Poshmark and her own website.
Frenzied gift shoppers, she said, are willing to pay more for certain items, sometimes even more than the retail price. “They’re impulse buyers,” she said. “They need to act fast, because if they can’t find it anywhere else, they’re stuck.”
She added that resale prices could go up more than 20 percent this time of year for classics like Louis Vuitton’s Speedy, a satchel available in different sizes.
The supply-chain warnings that everyone has heard — along with the already empty shelves in some stores — also may add to resale’s appeal this year. As Mr. Cohen from NPD put it, “You might not have gone to a resale site or a thrift store or some kind of secondhand opportunity, but if you really want a desired bag, you may have to find that as your resource.”
Read more at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/19/fashion/gifts-luxury-resale-sites.html
