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| People wait in front of Chanel’s boutique at Lotte Department Store in downtown Seoul, July 1. Korea Times photo by Cho So-jin |
By Kim Jae-heun
French fashion house Chanel is facing growing complaints from customers here for raising the prices of its products and also for being “picky” in its selection of targeted customer groups compared to other countries.
Hermes, another French luxury goods company, has also been selling its handbags exclusively to VIP customers.
It remains unknown how much a person has to spend in order to become a VIP customer of Hermes. This policy has made Hermes items more exclusive on one hand, but also upset many other shoppers.
Chanel is taking the same approach. This month, it has increased the prices of popular items by more than 1 million won ($873.90) here and limited the number of apparels and shoes customers can buy while checking their identification at stores and restricting exchanges of purchased products for different sizes.
Chanel raised product prices twice in 2020 and once more in February of this year. And the luxury brand has already decided to increase prices again.
Chanel raised prices in other countries too, referring to the practice as “price harmonization.”
“To maintain consistent prices in every part of the world, we adopt price harmonization and raise prices fairly,” said an official at Chanel’s local PR agency, Hill & Knowlton Strategies.
However, Asia is one of the regions where Chanel items are the most expensive.
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| Chanel’s popular Classic Flap Bag / Screen captured from Chanel’s website |
The prices of Chanel’s small, medium and large Classic Flap Bag in the United States were raised to $7,100, $7,800 and $8,500, respectively.
In Korea, the price of each size is 8.93 million won ($7,804), 9.71 million won ($8,486) and 10.49 million won ($9,167), respectively.
In Europe, small, medium and large sizes of the Classic Flap Bag cost 6,300 euros ($7,474), 6,850 euros ($8,126) and 7,400 euros ($8,779).
The contrasting price policies according to country are more evident when looking at a study by personal finance company, ValueChampion.
According to ValueChampion, Chanel increased the prices of its popular items in 15 countries by 17 percent on average between August 2019 and February 2021. Average prices increased the most in Australia (up 35 percent), followed by China (up 26 percent). Average prices in Korea increased 23 percent during the same period and mainly involved handbags. However, in the U.S., average prices went down by 7 percent.
Another policy implemented by Chanel is identification checks on customers at its boutiques. Starting this month, people have to show their ID cards to enter a Chanel store.
Chanel said the measure is aimed at stamping out resellers, who purchase large numbers of popular items and resell them online at higher prices.
Clerks at the boutiques only allow customers to use their own credit cards after matching the names on them with customers’ ID cards.
Also, products can only be exchanged within the same category of the item that a customer purchased. In other words, a person who bought a wallet cannot exchange it for a handbag even if they pay more.
Chanel said this measure is designed to provide fair opportunities for all shoppers.
Grievances increase over Chanel’s VIP-focused strategy
Source: Buhay Kapa PH
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