Louis Vuitton Bags or Gucci watches at a fraction of its original price: "recycling" luxury stores flourish in Japan, where the economic crisis has created a thriving second -hand market reflecting the new consumption strategies in the Asian country.
With the crisis, Japanese imports of new brand products, which include the most luxurious, totaled about 894.600 million yen (8.000 million euros), almost 16 percent less than the previous year, according to the private Yano Research Institute of the Asian country.
In times of skinny cows in Japan, one of the world's main luxury markets, consumers have learned new purchase strategies that have led to the recycling stores of luxury items to proliferate in the streets of the Asian country.The business seems to prosper, as shown, for example, the brilliant results of the Komehyo shopping chain, based in Nagoy2009 had a benefit of 372 million yen (3.3 million euros).
The main clients of this type of stores are "women between 20 and 40 who work in offices" and who mainly seek bags and watches, explained to Efe the head of the Internet portal "Tokyo Fashion Daily", Timothy Schepis.A good part of this segment are single young people who continue to live at their parents' house without paying rent and who, in view of the crisis, combine basic garments acquired in department stores with luxury items that allow them to maintain the touch of exclusivity.
Un reciente estudio de la consultora McKinsey & Company señala que, aunque retorne el tiempo de las vacas gordas a Japón, el antaño floreciente mercado del lujo nipón no volverá a ser el que fue en la década de los 80, durante la "burbuja" financiera.According to a survey by that consultant, 9 percent of Tokyots states that although the economy is recovered, it is not willing to return to its old level of expenses in luxury items, while another 20 percent believe that you can buy those same brands in The sales.
Therefore, in a country where 44 percent of women have a Louis Vuitton bag, according to data from the French group, the recycling of luxury items is presented as a good alternative to dress the last shout of fashion...or at least the penultimate.In the modern Tokyot neighborhood of Shinjuku a several -story building of the Komehyo chain is built and, near this one, a non -brand place, where the buyer is treated by prolve sellers with white gloves that show their luxurious products and warn, thatYes, of its imperceptible breaks.
Leather or patent leather or meadow bags quoted in about 1.500 euros are sold, second hand, about 350 euros, while Gucci or Bulgari watches for men, for example, cost half of what a new one would be worth.But what abounds most in the gondolas and counters of these recycled luxury stores are Louis Vuitton's bags, an emblematic brand in Japan and that further popularized with the film "Sex and The City".In these stores, a Vuitton bag in its checkered or monogram models can cost around 200 euros, around a fifth of its original price in Tokyo.
In Ginza, the luxury fashion mecca in Tokyo, there are second -hand stores in some hidden alleys, where young people can acquire, for example, leather jackets of sports brands such as Converse for 25 euros, a much lower price than theOf the traditional Japanese shops.
The second -hand market is not limited only to luxury.Either because of the crisis or a global trend of young people to buy used items, this type of business proliferates in many neighborhoods of the city in a country where poverty and per capita income is not known exceeds 32.000 dollars (about 23.800 euros).
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