Handbagged! – Louis Vuitton clamps down on Paris store bulk buyers
Proving that you can have too much of a good thing, Louis Vuitton’s shop on the Champs Elysees in Paris has introduced sales quotas for its leather handbags - such is the level of demand for the monogrammed status symbols among style-conscious Japanese.
For the well heeled young Japanese woman of today, nothing carries more kudos than a Louis Vuitton handbag – except perhaps a LV handbag that the comes complete with a purchase receipt from the retailer’s Champs Elysees store. When the price of these ‘ultra-exclusive’ handbags started to go through the roof in the Suchi bars of Tokyo, Japanese tourists visiting the French capital were quick to latch on to the commercial possibilities and began buying in bulk. Handbags bought from the store for £60 ($85) are currently fetching £100 and more, and demand shows no sign of slipping.
Alarmed at the prospect of their brand becoming a mere sales commodity, the Champs Elysees store introduced a ‘one-bag, one-customer‘ policy and has limited cash sales to £100 per time. However, this has not been enough to deter the more intrepid of the ‘serial bag buyers’, who have taken to stopping young Parisiennes on the famous shopping street, offering them up to £100 to queue up for the treasured bags.
According to the UK newspaper ‘The Independent’ Louis Vuitton denies it has a quota system in place, but says: "We have decided to satisfy as many customers as possible, rather than individuals who buy 10 bags at once."
