How does the market for luxury items (watches, hand bags etc.) work?

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Most people I know of who buy luxury watches or handbags say they’re a good store of value and can fetch a high resale price in the future. If the market mostly consists of people who buy them for the sole purpose of reselling, wouldn’t that make it a purely speculatively priced item, akin to crypto? How has the luxury market not collapsed?

In: Economics

9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There’s a constant stream of people buying luxury goods in order to show people they own luxury goods. This describes most collectors too – they might make a profit selling the odd item but almost none make a profit overall.

Very few people buy new and are genuinely going to make a profit reselling. Those that do are extremely careful to leave the purchase in perfect condition. There are not many people buying a perfect condition 2004 Rolex to wear, but there are even fewer available for purchase.

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