8 ms·

I find these systems fascinating. Hermes does make high-quality bags but really where they shine is in marketing. You see a similar thing play out in the mecha

by cletus 2y ago

I find these systems fascinating. Hermes does make high-quality bags but really where they shine is in marketing. You see a similar thing play out in the mechanical watch world. Rolex is the master of marketing. They make a good product, make no mistake, but they don't over-produce models, still have scarcity despite selling millions of watches a year and have a limited inventory so Rolexes have the strongest secondary market. Compare this to Omega who simply produce too many watches and too many watch variants such that you just don't have the strong secondary market that Rolex has. This is despite Omega producing in some cases a better product in utility purposes (eg Planet Ocean vs Deepsea Sea-Dweller). But there's a dirty little secret with all these brands, including Hermes. As much as they say it's about spend ratios and the like, ultimately it comes down to whether or not they like you. If, as a woman, you're attractive, stylish and likely to be seen with their products (eg red carpet events) you will have WAY more offered to you than your spend ratio might otherwise warrant.

FpUser 2y ago
>"but really where they shine is in marketing." I guess they do since they can sell their stuff. But not to people like me. When I see product priced just for being status symbol my first reaction is - fuck off, go find yourself some suckers.
- pineaux 2y ago
  I am not saying you shouldn't tell them to fuck off, but have you entertained the idea that the person who is the sucker is actually you? These watches are part of a status and this status allows these people to dictate to the rest of us how they'd like their omelette.
  - FpUser 2y ago
    Well I work as an independent company, I find clients, develop products for them on my own premises and get paid, sometimes it is licensing fees. I am not rich but do well enough and can retire. So no, except the government nobody tells me what to do and as long as I pay taxes the government not really interested in people like myself.
- paulcole 2y ago
  > But not to people like me I love the Enlightened Hacker News Commenter who can’t wait to share how they are different from other people when it comes to marketing. Who’s the sucker, the person buying the Birkin or the person commenting hundreds of times on a website that’s a marketing campaign for a VC firm?
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    ¿Por que no los dos?
    - paulcole 2y ago
      Neither of them are suckers. It’s fun to post online and it’s fun to buy things that make you happy.
  - FpUser 2y ago
    >"Who’s the sucker, the person buying the Birkin or the person commenting hundreds of times on a website that’s a marketing campaign for a VC firm?" Does that really matter? I just expressed my opinion. And I am not that different. I bet there are more people like myself than the ones who would pay $10000 for a purse.
    - dagw 2y ago
      I bet there are more people like myself than the ones who would pay $10000 for a purse. Obviously. But are there more people 'like you', than people willing to pay 'too much' for something they know is irrational, just because it brings them joy. I might not want to buy that specific hand bag, but I'm not going to sit here and judge since I too have made plenty of irrational purchases in my life, many of which have brought me great fun and joy.
      - FpUser 2y ago
        I do make plenty of irrational choices too. Same people who do not mind paying thousands for a gun laugh at me when I pay $5000 for an EUC. Hard to explain but I think it is a bit different than paying for "status symbol"
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- cletus 2y ago
  I don't know anything about the secondary market for Hermes bags but it seems like it's pretty healthy. But watches from certain brands (and certain models) can be sold immediately for a profit. For example, a Rolex steel Daytona retails for $14k from an MSRP. You'll sell it in a heartbeat on the secondary market for $30k. The Rainbow Daytona a handful of years ago was $100-150k IIRC. It's now closer to $500-600k. The market is off its peak of 2021-2022 quite a bit but I've bought several luxury watches that could be sold for a healthy profit if I was so inclined.
  - TheRoque 2y ago
    What makes some of these products go crazy heights, while (I guess that) some other just lose value or never gain value ? Are those products better than others or is it just some pure coincidental mix of factors ?
    - cletus 2y ago
      It's really difficult to predict and has to be managed well by the company. But a big one is when a model gets discontinued because at that point no more will be made so supply is fixed. So the current generation of professional (ie steel) Daytonas have a ceramic bezel. This is to avoid scratches but means they can shatter with enough force. The ceramic itself is baked in a plasma furnace. The tech behind these things can actually be really cool. So Daytonas have historically sold above MSRP on the secondary market but not by this much. About 10 years ago the new ceramic Daytonas were released and what happened was a lot of people sold their previous DAytonas to "upgrade". This meant that what was 6 months earlier a $13k MSRP watch was selling for $10-11k and that seemed crazy to me given it was now discontinued so I bought one. At the peak of the market, that watch would sell for $30-35k. Now it's probably under $25k but that's still a good investment. But steel Rolexes never really appreciate that much because the volumes ard really high. You're not going to get rich buying a steel Submariner. There's simply too many of them out there. But one exception is the really vintage Daytonas, particularly what are called Paul Newman Daytonas [1]. These were watches that back in the 1980s sat in a display case for years (at $500 or less) because no one bought them but an association with Paul Newman skyrocketed them in the public consciousness to the point that a 1960s era Paul Newman Daytona in mint condition can easily be worth $500k-$1m+. The market dynamics are really fascinating but it's now become essentially impossible buy an in-demand watch from an AD unless you're a big spender on other products there (they're all typically jewelers as well). The history of Rolex was in utility not luxury (eg the GMT was invented for Pan Am pilots who suddenly were flying cross-country, the Submariner is a dive watch, the Daytona was originally for racing drivers, etc). [1]: https://www.bobswatches.com/paul-newman-rolex-daytona https://www.bobswatches.com/paul-newman-rolex-daytona
- CPLX 2y ago
  > When I see product priced just for being status symbol my first reaction is - fuck off, go find yourself some suckers. This phenomenon is (or must be) so fundamental to existence that it has been produced over and over again by the process of biological evolution. There clearly is a utility in a social setting to showing off the fact that you have sufficient resources to waste quite a few of them just visibly showing that you can.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    > There clearly is a utility in a social setting to showing off the fact that you have sufficient resources to waste quite a few of them just visibly showing that you can. That's the whole deal with engagement rings, and more generally with romance.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    > There clearly is a utility in a social setting to showing off the fact that you have sufficient resources to waste quite a few of them just visibly showing that you can. The modern world has much better ways to show this than relatively low cost jewelry/clothes/accessories. Real estate, employer, board seats, private jet flights, yachts, and the simplest, vacationing often to destinations you have to fly to.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      > Real estate, employer, board seats, private jet flights, yachts Those are all way too expensive for regular folks. > and the simplest, vacationing often to destinations you have to fly to. That's too cheap to work as a status symbol for regular folks, plus provides all kinds of value (entertainment, relaxation, etc.) so it's not even a good way to burn money. Regular folks show off by e.g. buying engagement rings that are multiple of the fiance's salary, or making other purchases whose defining characteristic is that others know it's expensive. Jewelry, clothes and accessories are good for showing off because the more expensive ones aren't more useful or pretty at the margin. You're not buying utility for spending extra, other than that conferred by status games.
    - kaibee 2y ago
- michael_vo 2y ago
  The whole Debeers diamond ring scam has worked for decades until the last few years where synthetics are crashing the market.
  - OJFord 2y ago
    And so they should be, there is absolutely no reason to pay more a mined diamond than lab-grown, it's synthetically produced but it's not a synthetic product if you see what I mean, it's not like say cotton vs polyester. It only makes sense to mine diamonds if it's cheaper to do so than to manufacture one of equivalent quality.
    - PaulRobinson 2y ago
      There's a great documentary about this called Nothing Lasts Forever which I think I caught on Netflix. The outfits with big skin in the natural/mined diamond sector have told a story about something that's been in the ground for eons and being pulled out and turned into something special as a symbol of love, and hoping that turns people away from synthetics. It's just story telling. You can see the romance in it, but the price differential is huge. There are various attempts to keep the synthetics out, and/or identifiable, but even the main players are admitting that a significant percentage of synthetics are now in the naturals market, nobody knows how many, and that they're undetectable. That means the naturals market has to come back to actual costs plus some markup over what they've been for 100+ years: costs plus insane markups.
      - OJFord 2y ago
        > something special as a symbol of love, and hoping that turns people away from synthetics. It's just story telling. You can see the romance in it, but the price differential is huge. It's just BS, my wife's engagement ring stone is a size we picked, and then a quality (colour, lack of occlusions etc.) that I did some research on and picked to be a level for each that basically you needed to be trained & have equipment in order to determine the defects, i.e. I can't ever give her another one (natural or not) that looks better (it could be bigger but not more brilliant) to the naked eye. (And it's for her to wear, not an investment or whatever, so I figured really no reason to care beyond the naked eye.) If I'd added an additional requirement that it be formed over millennia in the earth, either it would have cost us a lot more, or more likely she'd have an objectively worse ring. Nothing romantic about that IMO!
- crote 2y ago
  It's such a weird market segment to me. Sure, they are obviously very high-quality products, but they are clearly not worth the money you are paying for them. You're very obviously paying primarily for the opportunity to brag that you've got a "genuine Birkin". It's like those silly restaurants putting gold flakes on food: you can't taste or smell it, so you're paying solely for the opportunity to be ripped off. If you've got money to burn, why not get a fully-custom product made exactly to your wishes by a local atelier and end up with a far superior product for the same price? What's the point if you can't even fully enjoy the fruits of your labor?
  - twixfel 2y ago
    Yes, I know a guy who is of old Indian royal family stock (of course they have no special rights any more), and he will just show pictures of expensive bags and so on to his tailor and get them made for orders of magnitude less than retail.
  - lupire 2y ago
    It's entertainment. It's just as right or wrong as buying tickets to watch a sporting contest.
jajko 2y ago
Same goes ie for Ferrari. For those that don't know - you can buy 'cheap' V8 ie Californias, 458, 488, F8 etc, pretty much just like anything - you pay and get into queue, and once its your time, you get what you've selected with sales rep. Not so much the better V12 / hypercars which they do in carefully limited amounts. You have to be previous owner of series of lesser ones. You have to be their customer for quite some time, with flawless trail as a stellar customer. You have to have very good relationship with their company (so like Justin Bieber got his car painted on some color that they didn't approve and Ferrari banned him for life). Unique extremely limited series are all this but 10x or 100x, since all know this is darn good investment right out of gate, if you don't screw up maintenance (and at those price levels nobody sane does that). Those are basically not driven, each km would be ridiculously costly in total costs and depreciation. You can skip most of this if you buy second hand, for adequate inflated prices. This won't work for Bieber style of situation of course.
- 331c8c71 2y ago
  Fascinating, thank you. What staggers me is how the very well-off people who can afford the Ferraris put up with this nonsense. In my book the whole point of being rich is the increased freedom which surely includes not complying to idiotic requirements (and I don't mean the social and legal norms here). I guess an urge for status signalling is very hard to resist.
  - arethuza 2y ago
    It's probably because of this "nonsense" that people see these cars as exclusive and therefore worthy of putting up with the nonsense...
  - technothrasher 2y ago
    Having dipped my toes in the Ferrari world, there are three very different groups of Ferrari buyers- Status people, car people, and super rich people. The status people play the silly game with the dealers. The car people buy used from the status people after the new model isn't flashy any longer. The super rich people buy original era cars (before Fiat bought out the company in the 1970's) and use them as investments.

by cletus 2y ago

FpUser 2y ago

>"but really where they shine is in marketing." I guess they do since they can sell their stuff. But not to people like me. When I see product priced just for being status symbol my first reaction is - fuck off, go find yourself some suckers.

pineaux 2y ago
I am not saying you shouldn't tell them to fuck off, but have you entertained the idea that the person who is the sucker is actually you? These watches are part of a status and this status allows these people to dictate to the rest of us how they'd like their omelette.
- FpUser 2y ago
  Well I work as an independent company, I find clients, develop products for them on my own premises and get paid, sometimes it is licensing fees. I am not rich but do well enough and can retire. So no, except the government nobody tells me what to do and as long as I pay taxes the government not really interested in people like myself.
paulcole 2y ago
> But not to people like me I love the Enlightened Hacker News Commenter who can’t wait to share how they are different from other people when it comes to marketing. Who’s the sucker, the person buying the Birkin or the person commenting hundreds of times on a website that’s a marketing campaign for a VC firm?
- Y_Y 2y ago
  ¿Por que no los dos?
  - paulcole 2y ago
    Neither of them are suckers. It’s fun to post online and it’s fun to buy things that make you happy.
- FpUser 2y ago
  >"Who’s the sucker, the person buying the Birkin or the person commenting hundreds of times on a website that’s a marketing campaign for a VC firm?" Does that really matter? I just expressed my opinion. And I am not that different. I bet there are more people like myself than the ones who would pay $10000 for a purse.
  - dagw 2y ago
    I bet there are more people like myself than the ones who would pay $10000 for a purse. Obviously. But are there more people 'like you', than people willing to pay 'too much' for something they know is irrational, just because it brings them joy. I might not want to buy that specific hand bag, but I'm not going to sit here and judge since I too have made plenty of irrational purchases in my life, many of which have brought me great fun and joy.
    - FpUser 2y ago
      I do make plenty of irrational choices too. Same people who do not mind paying thousands for a gun laugh at me when I pay $5000 for an EUC. Hard to explain but I think it is a bit different than paying for "status symbol"
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cletus 2y ago
I don't know anything about the secondary market for Hermes bags but it seems like it's pretty healthy. But watches from certain brands (and certain models) can be sold immediately for a profit. For example, a Rolex steel Daytona retails for $14k from an MSRP. You'll sell it in a heartbeat on the secondary market for $30k. The Rainbow Daytona a handful of years ago was $100-150k IIRC. It's now closer to $500-600k. The market is off its peak of 2021-2022 quite a bit but I've bought several luxury watches that could be sold for a healthy profit if I was so inclined.
- TheRoque 2y ago
  What makes some of these products go crazy heights, while (I guess that) some other just lose value or never gain value ? Are those products better than others or is it just some pure coincidental mix of factors ?
  - cletus 2y ago
    It's really difficult to predict and has to be managed well by the company. But a big one is when a model gets discontinued because at that point no more will be made so supply is fixed. So the current generation of professional (ie steel) Daytonas have a ceramic bezel. This is to avoid scratches but means they can shatter with enough force. The ceramic itself is baked in a plasma furnace. The tech behind these things can actually be really cool. So Daytonas have historically sold above MSRP on the secondary market but not by this much. About 10 years ago the new ceramic Daytonas were released and what happened was a lot of people sold their previous DAytonas to "upgrade". This meant that what was 6 months earlier a $13k MSRP watch was selling for $10-11k and that seemed crazy to me given it was now discontinued so I bought one. At the peak of the market, that watch would sell for $30-35k. Now it's probably under $25k but that's still a good investment. But steel Rolexes never really appreciate that much because the volumes ard really high. You're not going to get rich buying a steel Submariner. There's simply too many of them out there. But one exception is the really vintage Daytonas, particularly what are called Paul Newman Daytonas [1]. These were watches that back in the 1980s sat in a display case for years (at $500 or less) because no one bought them but an association with Paul Newman skyrocketed them in the public consciousness to the point that a 1960s era Paul Newman Daytona in mint condition can easily be worth $500k-$1m+. The market dynamics are really fascinating but it's now become essentially impossible buy an in-demand watch from an AD unless you're a big spender on other products there (they're all typically jewelers as well). The history of Rolex was in utility not luxury (eg the GMT was invented for Pan Am pilots who suddenly were flying cross-country, the Submariner is a dive watch, the Daytona was originally for racing drivers, etc). [1]: https://www.bobswatches.com/paul-newman-rolex-daytona https://www.bobswatches.com/paul-newman-rolex-daytona
CPLX 2y ago
> When I see product priced just for being status symbol my first reaction is - fuck off, go find yourself some suckers. This phenomenon is (or must be) so fundamental to existence that it has been produced over and over again by the process of biological evolution. There clearly is a utility in a social setting to showing off the fact that you have sufficient resources to waste quite a few of them just visibly showing that you can.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > There clearly is a utility in a social setting to showing off the fact that you have sufficient resources to waste quite a few of them just visibly showing that you can. That's the whole deal with engagement rings, and more generally with romance.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  > There clearly is a utility in a social setting to showing off the fact that you have sufficient resources to waste quite a few of them just visibly showing that you can. The modern world has much better ways to show this than relatively low cost jewelry/clothes/accessories. Real estate, employer, board seats, private jet flights, yachts, and the simplest, vacationing often to destinations you have to fly to.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    > Real estate, employer, board seats, private jet flights, yachts Those are all way too expensive for regular folks. > and the simplest, vacationing often to destinations you have to fly to. That's too cheap to work as a status symbol for regular folks, plus provides all kinds of value (entertainment, relaxation, etc.) so it's not even a good way to burn money. Regular folks show off by e.g. buying engagement rings that are multiple of the fiance's salary, or making other purchases whose defining characteristic is that others know it's expensive. Jewelry, clothes and accessories are good for showing off because the more expensive ones aren't more useful or pretty at the margin. You're not buying utility for spending extra, other than that conferred by status games.
  - kaibee 2y ago
michael_vo 2y ago
The whole Debeers diamond ring scam has worked for decades until the last few years where synthetics are crashing the market.
- OJFord 2y ago
  And so they should be, there is absolutely no reason to pay more a mined diamond than lab-grown, it's synthetically produced but it's not a synthetic product if you see what I mean, it's not like say cotton vs polyester. It only makes sense to mine diamonds if it's cheaper to do so than to manufacture one of equivalent quality.
  - PaulRobinson 2y ago
    There's a great documentary about this called Nothing Lasts Forever which I think I caught on Netflix. The outfits with big skin in the natural/mined diamond sector have told a story about something that's been in the ground for eons and being pulled out and turned into something special as a symbol of love, and hoping that turns people away from synthetics. It's just story telling. You can see the romance in it, but the price differential is huge. There are various attempts to keep the synthetics out, and/or identifiable, but even the main players are admitting that a significant percentage of synthetics are now in the naturals market, nobody knows how many, and that they're undetectable. That means the naturals market has to come back to actual costs plus some markup over what they've been for 100+ years: costs plus insane markups.
    - OJFord 2y ago
      > something special as a symbol of love, and hoping that turns people away from synthetics. It's just story telling. You can see the romance in it, but the price differential is huge. It's just BS, my wife's engagement ring stone is a size we picked, and then a quality (colour, lack of occlusions etc.) that I did some research on and picked to be a level for each that basically you needed to be trained & have equipment in order to determine the defects, i.e. I can't ever give her another one (natural or not) that looks better (it could be bigger but not more brilliant) to the naked eye. (And it's for her to wear, not an investment or whatever, so I figured really no reason to care beyond the naked eye.) If I'd added an additional requirement that it be formed over millennia in the earth, either it would have cost us a lot more, or more likely she'd have an objectively worse ring. Nothing romantic about that IMO!
crote 2y ago
It's such a weird market segment to me. Sure, they are obviously very high-quality products, but they are clearly not worth the money you are paying for them. You're very obviously paying primarily for the opportunity to brag that you've got a "genuine Birkin". It's like those silly restaurants putting gold flakes on food: you can't taste or smell it, so you're paying solely for the opportunity to be ripped off. If you've got money to burn, why not get a fully-custom product made exactly to your wishes by a local atelier and end up with a far superior product for the same price? What's the point if you can't even fully enjoy the fruits of your labor?
- twixfel 2y ago
  Yes, I know a guy who is of old Indian royal family stock (of course they have no special rights any more), and he will just show pictures of expensive bags and so on to his tailor and get them made for orders of magnitude less than retail.
- lupire 2y ago
  It's entertainment. It's just as right or wrong as buying tickets to watch a sporting contest.

jajko 2y ago

Same goes ie for Ferrari. For those that don't know - you can buy 'cheap' V8 ie Californias, 458, 488, F8 etc, pretty much just like anything - you pay and get into queue, and once its your time, you get what you've selected with sales rep. Not so much the better V12 / hypercars which they do in carefully limited amounts. You have to be previous owner of series of lesser ones. You have to be their customer for quite some time, with flawless trail as a stellar customer. You have to have very good relationship with their company (so like Justin Bieber got his car painted on some color that they didn't approve and Ferrari banned him for life). Unique extremely limited series are all this but 10x or 100x, since all know this is darn good investment right out of gate, if you don't screw up maintenance (and at those price levels nobody sane does that). Those are basically not driven, each km would be ridiculously costly in total costs and depreciation. You can skip most of this if you buy second hand, for adequate inflated prices. This won't work for Bieber style of situation of course.

331c8c71 2y ago
Fascinating, thank you. What staggers me is how the very well-off people who can afford the Ferraris put up with this nonsense. In my book the whole point of being rich is the increased freedom which surely includes not complying to idiotic requirements (and I don't mean the social and legal norms here). I guess an urge for status signalling is very hard to resist.
- arethuza 2y ago
  It's probably because of this "nonsense" that people see these cars as exclusive and therefore worthy of putting up with the nonsense...
- technothrasher 2y ago
  Having dipped my toes in the Ferrari world, there are three very different groups of Ferrari buyers- Status people, car people, and super rich people. The status people play the silly game with the dealers. The car people buy used from the status people after the new model isn't flashy any longer. The super rich people buy original era cars (before Fiat bought out the company in the 1970's) and use them as investments.