Why the price of this Chanel bag has increased by 2,000 euros in a few months
The "small classic bag" is one of the essential models at Chanel. Not for all budgets, it can be bought for several thousand euros. And in the space of a few months, its price has even jumped. Amount of the increase: around 2,000 euros, as spotted by the head of the fight against counterfeiting at Leboncoin and Videdressing, taken over by BFM Business, Thursday, November 4. In just one month, this "small classic bag" has seen its price drop from 6,300 euros at the end of September to 7,300 euros today.
An increase of 16%, well above inflation, and above all which follows another increase already, identified this summer. At the time, this model was sold for 5,500 euros. In total, the price of this bag has therefore, in a few months, increased by 33%. Why such a leap in such a short time? The reality shows that these increases, in the field of luxury, are not so rare. Chanel is not the only brand to practice them. They make it possible to maintain a certain rarity, and therefore permanently confer a "desirable" character on the product.
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With BFM Business, Delphine Dion, professor at Essec Business School delivers an implacable observation: "The worst for a luxury product is trivialization." Mass consumption is the opposite of what big brands are after. Also, no wonder they raise the price of some of their flagship products. "Chanel must have realized that this bag was oversold. From the moment a product becomes too accessible, luxury brands increase the price to prevent it from becoming commonplace", analyzes the professor.
Chanel's explanations
As the news channel reminds us, many "it bags" have seen their prices constantly increase since they were put on the market, like the famous Birkin, at Hermès. Some models have even seen their initial value jump by 70% since their creation. This strategy has a name: the Veblen theory, which implies that the more the price of one of these goods increases, the stronger the demand is.
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However, on the side of Chanel, we evoke a completely different explanation: "Like all the major luxury brands, we regularly adjust our prices to take into account the evolution of our production costs and the prices of raw materials, as well as fluctuations in exchange rates." With the chain, the brand adds that the adjustments made take into account the need not to have too large gaps between the different world markets in which it is present.
A luxury sector that does not know the crisis
Still, the luxury sector, unlike many economic activities, has not really suffered from the effects of the crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic. BFM Business thus recalls that Hermès shares improved by 32% in 2020, its best annual performance in the CAC 40, while LVMH announced, last July, a net profit up 64% compared to the period of before the crisis.
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