How To Find Designer Bags at Lower Cost

Designer and luxury bags are among the most demanded fashion items. Not surprisingly, prices for these bags have continuously increased over the past years. While prices have increased, there are still offers well below the average market or retail price. In this article, we show how to identify the most valuable offers.

Why do designer bags cost so much?

The prices of designer bags have seen a remarkable increase during the last years. While the uptrend in prices can be observed in the bag industry as a whole, a few brands stand out from the crowd.

In 2021, the price tag put on Chanel's Medium Flap Bag was at $6,800. After its price was increased two times, the price of the iconic bag is at $8,800 at the moment of this writing. In other words, the price of Chanel's Classic Flap Bag has increased almost 30% in less than two years.

The reasons for price increases can be explained by mainly two factors: Economy and Branding.

It is a common practice for designers to increase their prices on a yearly basis in order to account for increasing production costs. For example, Louis Vuitton's famous Speedy Bag only cost $150 in 1979. Almost 20 years later, in 1998, the price has more than doubled to $325, which corresponds to an annualized price increase of around 10 percent. Similarly, other brands have regularly increased their prices to cope with increasing input costs.

Contrary to this, designer brands might also increase prices to strengthen their branding. Most famous for branding is the Birkin Bag by Hermès which, through good marketing and high price branding, is today known for being one of the most prestigious designer bags. Coming back to Chanel, analysts suggest that the French luxury house aims to follow suit by doing more and higher prices increases than in the past.

How to find designer bags at low cost?

With increasing prices and high demand for high-quality designer bags, it is not straight-forward to find your favorite designer bags for an affordable price. However, there exist opportunities in the market to find bags at a reasonable discount. The two main areas to focus on are the pre-owned market and discounts offered from retailers.

Buy pre-owned designer bags in good condition

The largest discounts can be found on the pre-owned market. Although not fabric-new, these bags often come in a good condition. While pre-owned bags are mostly earlier models, the large discounts compared to retail still make them a valuable purchase. 

We have analysed offers on pre-owned designer bags and found that price discounts can be as high as 60 percent compared to retail.

Let's come back to Chanel's iconic Medium Flap Bag. According to Chanel's official website, the bag is currently available for $8,800 in retail. Pre-Owned marketplaces such as VestiaireCollective currently offer Chanel's Classic Handbag for $5,739.39 in very good condition, including an original card or certificate. This is a discount of around 35 percent for one of the world's most iconic fashion bags and could potentially be an interesting buying opportunity.

 Chanel Classic Handbag at Chanel.com (Retrieved on December 29, 2022)

Chanel Classic Handbag at VestiaireCollective.com (Retrieved on December 29, 2022)

Buy designer bags at a discount

As with other fashion items such as clothing and shoes, retailers also offer discounts on selected designer bags. While not all luxury bags are promoted via a sales offer or discount, those that are can be valuable purchases.

Not all retailers offer the same discounts at the same time. Therefore, it can pay off to do some research in multiple retail online stores to find the best offers. As this task can be quite time consuming, we have created a catalog of selected handbags that are currently listed at a discount in one of our selected online stores. Discover our catalog here.