Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Louis Vuitton ‘forced’ to raise price on already expensive items
LOUIS Vuitton, LVMH’s top fashion brand, yesterday raised prices globally as a result of increased manufacturing and transportation costs, a spokesperson for the French luxury goods company in China told Reuters.
Louis Vuitton, the world’s biggest luxury brand, will become one of the first big labels in the industry to hike prices widely this year to protect its margins as costs soar.
The price increases will affect Louis Vuitton stores worldwide and cover leather goods, fashion accessories and perfumes, the spokesperson said on Tuesday. She did not give further details on the scale of the rises, beyond saying that they would vary depending on the product.
“The price adjustment takes into account changes in production costs, raw materials, transportation as well as inflation,” the label said.
Some bloggers on Chinese social media said the price tag on some models of handbags such as Capucines and Neverfull would rise by 20% or more in China, without citing sources.
Purse Bop, a website tracking the luxury market, cited speculation that the increase would be between around four percent on the lower end and 15-18% on average on the higher end.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, luxury goods companies have been taking advantage of surging demand for high-end fashion and accessories to push their brands even more upmarket.
Recently, French luxury brand, Chanel increased prices on some of its handbags three times last year, with the popular Classic Flap bag now costing 60% more than before the pandemic in 2019.
A spokesperson for Chanel attributed the price increases to what they describe as “unspecified exchangerate fluctuations” as well as other contributing factors, such as production costs and a desire to keep the costs as similar as possible on a global scale.
However, as Bloomberg reported last year, analysts and other experts, argued that the changes are instead a “strategy” aimed, at least in part, at competitors, mainly Hermès and their classic Birkin bag. |