A woman's bag is an accessory, the cost of which practically does not exist. Some bags cost millions of dollars, for example, the Mouawad 1001 Nights bag costs almost $4 million, and the Hermes Kelly Rose Gold costs $2 million. As a rule, such products contain a lot of gold and are also decorated with diamonds. However, there are women's bags that do not contain any precious jewelry, but are still sold for the price of a car or even an apartment. For example, this applies to the aforementioned Hermès brand – the price of the cheapest bags. that is, the basic black model starts from 1 million rubles and can reach 2.8 million rubles. But what is the real cost of such a product and why is it so expensive?
Exclusive Hermès bags cost millions of rubles. Photo source: factoria-moscow.ru
Hermès luxury women's bags
Luxury Hermès Birkin bags are made from the highest quality and most expensive materials. Often the manufacturer uses crocodile or alligator skin, but not only. Some bags are made from high-quality leather from calves, mountain goats, lizards and even ostriches.
Even ostrich skin is used to make Hermès bags. Photo source: factoria-moscow.ru
It takes at least 18 hours to make one bag. Each product is handmade in Pantin (France) in Hermès's own atelier. As mentioned above, only the simplest black model will cost, at best, 1 million rubles if you buy it directly from Hermès, which is not always possible.
As a rule, sellers get such a bag for 2 million rubles, and it goes on sale for 2.8 million rubles. Therefore, the lucky ones who managed to buy a Hermès bag directly from the manufacturer quickly earn about a million rubles in one day.
Many buyers are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get the Hermès bag in the color they want. Photo source: kanebridgenews.com
A boutique where the seller is “always right”
The cost of exclusive models of bags can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars. Are there many people willing to buy them? You will be surprised, but there are so many of them that the seller himself chooses who to sell the luxury product to. Moreover, only regular customers who have previously spent about 200 thousand dollars on Hermés products, which corresponds to approximately 8 million rubles, have a chance to buy an expensive accessory.
Buyers don’t even need many Hermès products; for example, rich women are unlikely to ever use a canoe bought for 87 thousand US dollars. They are purchased only to gain access to exclusive bags. But even in this case, the desired product is not always available to the buyer, and if it is available, the seller himself chooses its color without asking the buyer.
Some Hermès bags can only be bought by regular customers who have spent several hundred on brand products one thousand dollars. Photo source: www.dailymail.co.uk
It must be said that many other accessories, such as wallets, are also available only to VIP clients who constantly make large purchases of accessories from this brand. This makes Hermès a unique brand where it is not the buyer who is “always right”, but the seller. Therefore, the richest women in the world treat their salesman with homemade cookies in order to win him over and be able to buy luxury accessories.
What is the cost of Hermès bags
Even exclusive models of bags worth more than 8 million rubles usually do not contain diamonds and other precious stones. Of course, their leather and accessories are of the highest quality. However, according to analysts from The Wall Street Journal, the cost of producing one such handbag is about 85 thousand rubles. Of course, this is also not small, but still not 8 million.
What then is the company's secret? According to David Dubois, associate professor of marketing at Insead business school, it's all about a “beautiful story.” According to legend, the late actress Jane Birkin accidentally met Hermès CEO, Jean-Louis Dumas, on a plane. The actress complained that she could not find a handbag that suited her on sale. Together they sketched out the design of the future Hermès Birkin bag on a drink napkin.
Actress Jane Birkin with a Hermès bag. Photo source: dress-me-up.ru
Buyers like the “chance of the meeting”, as well as the fact that a woman who admired her style had a hand in creating the bag. Therefore, it really doesn’t matter what the cost of the accessory is.
Be sure to visit our Zen and Telegram channels, here you will find the most interesting news from the world of science and the latest discoveries!
Finally, we note that not only women's handbags cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Sometimes a bottle of vodka created in Russia has such a fantastic price. A curious incident happened with one of these bottles several years ago – it was stolen just to drink.