Editor’s Note
As the holiday season approaches, major luxury brands are implementing price increases across categories from handbags to watches. This move is expected to add further pressure on consumers during the peak gift-buying period.
With Christmas and the year-end gift season just a month away, luxury brands have successively implemented price increases. With prices rising across all categories from bags to watches and jewelry, consumer burden is expected to grow even heavier.
According to industry sources on the 12th, the Italian brand Bottega Veneta raised the domestic selling prices of some products starting on the 6th. The representative model, the ‘Large Andiamo’, increased by 14.5% from 11.36 million won to 13.01 million won. Bottega Veneta had also raised prices consecutively in February and May of this year.
Chanel also raised the domestic prices of its ‘Chanel 25’ handbag line by an average of 9.3% on the 4th. The small bag rose from 9.07 million won to 9.92 million won, the medium bag from 9.70 million won to 10.73 million won, and the large bag from 10.88 million won to 11.77 million won. Backpacks also saw increases in the 4% range, with the medium size rising from 9.96 million won to 10.38 million won and the large size from 10.62 million won to 11.07 million won.
Chanel has raised prices four times this year—in January for bags, March for cosmetics, June for bags and jewelry, and September for leather goods and shoes—effectively continuing a ‘quarterly increase’ trend.
The trend of price increases among luxury watch and jewelry brands is similar. The Italian luxury brand Bulgari raised prices for its representative lines, such as ‘Serpenti’ and ‘Diva’s Dream’, by an average of around 3% on the 10th. This marks the third increase this year alone.
Tiffany & Co., part of the LVMH group, is reportedly reviewing price increases for its main products within this month. Tiffany had also raised prices for its major domestic products in February and June of this year.
The Swiss high-end watch brand Vacheron Constantin plans to increase prices for all its domestic products by an average of 5% starting on the 15th. Another Swiss brand, Omega, adjusted its prices on the 1st of this month, raising the price of its representative product, the ‘Seamaster Aqua Terra Shade’, from 9.90 million won to 10.40 million won.
With the gift season approaching, this latest round of price hikes by multiple luxury brands is expected to further increase the financial burden on consumers seeking year-end gifts.