Planet Money
Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy a luxury brand item secondhand (say, a Chanel handbag) you had to have an in. There was no easy way to find one. But over the past decade, the market for secondhand luxury goods has exploded. There are now many online resellers where you can shop for used and discounted luxury items. One big problem — how can you be sure if it’s real and authentic?
Some online resellers claim to have solved this problem. They say they’ve developed a process of authentication, and so buyers can trust that the bag is really Gucci or Cartier or Hermès or whatever. But according to some luxury brands, authenticity is something that is often imitated but never replicated.
In today’s episode of Planet Money, the fight between Chanel and The RealReal. And how luxury brands are reacting to the enormous and growing secondhand market for luxury goods.
Support:
Read:Â
- Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life
- Our weekly longformPlanet Money newsletter
- Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter
Follow:Â
This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Amanda Aronczyk and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Charlotte Isidore, who also fact checked this episode. Jess Jiang edited the show and it was engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money‘s executive producer.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
-
The billion dollar war behind U.S. rum
When you buy a bottle of rum in the United States, by law nearly all the federal taxes on that rum must be sent to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It’s an unusual…
-
Wind boom, wind bust (Two Windicators)
The wind power business is a bit contradictory right now. It’s showing signs of boom and bust seemingly all at once. The story of wind energy markets in two acts today. First, the Gulf of…
-
On the Oscars campaign trail
When you sit down to watch the Oscars, what you are really watching is the final battle in a months-long war of financial engineering and campaign strategy. Because in Hollywood, every year is an election…
-
Is dynamic pricing coming to a supermarket near you?
Dynamic pricing is an increasingly common phenomenon: You can see it when Uber prices surge during rainy weather, or when you’re booking a flight at the last minute or buying tickets to your favorite superstar’s…
-
Shopping for parental benefits around the world
It is so expensive to have a kid in the United States. The U.S. is one of just a handful of countries worldwide with no federal paid parental leave; it offers functionally no public childcare…
-
The secret world behind school fundraisers
Fundraising is a staple of the school experience in the U.S. There’s an assembly showing off all the prizes kids can win by selling enough wrapping paper or chocolate to their neighbors. But it’s pretty…
-
A controversial idea at the heart of Bidenomics
Réka Juhász is a professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, and she studies what’s known as industrial policy. That’s the general term for whenever the government tries to promote specific sectors of…
-
Two Indicators: Economics of the defense industry
The Department of Defense’s proposed budget for 2024 is $842 billion. That is about 3.5% of the U.S.’s GDP. The military buys everything from pens and paper clips to fighter jets and submarines. But the…
-
How the Navy came to protect cargo ships
The Genco Picardy is not an American ship. It doesn’t pay U.S. taxes, none of its crew are U.S. nationals, and when it sailed through the Red Sea last month, it wasn’t carrying cargo to…
-
It’s giving … Valentines
L, is for the way you Listen to Planet MoneyO, is for the Only podcast I hearV, is Very, very, fiduciaryE, is for… ECONOMICS! Every February, we dedicate a show to the things in our…