If you walk into a Hermès store for the first time, no amount of money will be enough to get you the Birkin bag of your dreams. That's because each store reserves the bags for a limited number of customers, and typically only those who've made enough repeat purchases.
The elusiveness around owning one of its bags has been instrumental in the French company’s elite status in the luxury market. But it’s also peeved customers who just want a Birkin bag fast, instead of spending thousands climbing up a metaphorical Hermès ladder of worthiness.
Earlier this year, two Californians, Tina Cavalleri and Mark Glinoga, took matters into their own hands by suing Hermès, claiming it was being “anti-competitive.”
“Consumers are coerced into purchasing ancillary products from Hermès by virtue of wanting to purchase the Birkin Handbags,” the lawsuit said. “Typically, only those consumers who are deemed worthy of purchasing a Birkin handbag will be shown a Birkin handbag.”
After initial pushback from a U.S. district court judge, the plaintiffs expanded and refiled the lawsuit last month with additional details.
Despite the seemingly high threshold to qualify for Hermès bag purchases, something has worked. The company has grown consistently over the years and even defied a slump in sales that hurt many of its competitors.
So why does mystery surround its Birkin bags?
Why are Birkin bags so hard to buy?
Birkin bags have become Hermès’s flagship product—but they’re only 40 years old. They started gaining traction soon after, as songs were written in their honor, fictional characters equated “making it” to owning Hermès goods, and celebrities frolicked with Birkin bags in hand.
Each Birkin bag is like a work of art; it takes hours for a single artisan to create a piece from scratch. That limits how many Hermès can produce and supply worldwide, lending its bags the exclusivity that appeals to luxury shoppers.
The quest for a Birkin—and its popularity—ties to a sociological principle in which people equate scarcity and rarity of something to it being valuable and worth seeking out.
“The more something is difficult—but not impossible—to get a product, the more it is desirable and exclusive, and the more the process to get it is elusive, the more the customer is engaged in trying to get at the end of the process to get it,” Mario Ortelli, managing partner of the luxury advisory firm Ortelli&Co, told Fortune in an email.
But that’s just one piece of the puzzle.
How can I buy a Birkin bag?
While Hermès doesn’t spell out the exact formula it takes to make a Birkin bag purchase, you certainly can’t walk into a store and expect to own one if it’s your first-ever product with the brand.
Hermès wants its shoppers to have a purchase history across other categories, from apparel to accessories, before aiming for the cherry on the top: the Birkin. There will likely be a waitlist to endure and loyalty to prove to the sales associates at Hermès stores, but shoppers seem to ache for that.
Following certain rituals can get you a Birkin bag directly from the horse’s mouth—but buying secondhand is always an option.
The only catch? It might cost shoppers even more than firsthand purchases because of the appreciation of Hermès bags’ value.
Aside from raising prices every few years, the value of a bag is also determined by how old, rare, and big it is, auction house Sotheby’s said. And given how sought-after Birkin bags are, their price only goes up with time as the scarcity remains.
Sometimes, Birkin's resale value is comfortably double the original sale price, which is several thousand dollars to begin with.
That’s why experts argue that Hermès might be more valuable than gold as a long-term investment.
“The resale value of particularly the Birkin and Kelly bags over the past 10 years has outpaced gold,” James Firestein, founder of luxury resale and authentication platform OpenLuxury, told Fortune earlier this year. “They’re made to last for generations.”
Will the Hermès lawsuit over Birkin bags change anything?
The class-action lawsuit, refiled in October, is the first of its kind claiming Hermès violated antitrust laws.
But legal experts aren’t sure the case would go very far as Hermès's monopoly only extends to its own products. U.S. District Judge James Donato was also not convinced by the plaintiffs’ allegations when the case first surfaced in March.
“Hermès can run its business any way it wants. If it chooses to make five Birkin bags a year and charge a million to them, it can do that,” he said, according to Reuters. Donato added that, if anything, the company’s selective practices in selling its bags should only allow competitors more room to maneuver.
“If Hermès is going to make you pay a fortune for their bag, they are leaving the ground open for every competitor to say, ‘Come on in and get our beautiful bag and you don’t have to buy $3,000 or $30,000 worth of belts,” he said.
The world of luxury fashion—and anyone else vying for a Birkin—will be watching how the updated lawsuit evolves.
