I feel like this shows up in any news article about resale markups of trendy merch - the highest-price listing gets the headline, regardless of if it ever sells. I get that these soft-news articles are more about driving traffic to the site than quality reporting, but I'm still surprised (and annoyed!) that these easily disprovable eye-grabbers are omnipresent in this class of story.
I was wondering why these were so prominently displayed at my local store. Now I know! They're too small for me, like to shop less often and stock up when I do, and I never imagined a use besides as a shopping bag.
Nothing in either article about what is driving so much demand for these bags. It just seems circular: they're selling like crazy because they are scarce and they are scarce because they're selling like crazy.
They are resold in Korea for insane prices. No explanation why they are so coveted over there but they are. I have one but no desire to sell it - I just like it.
I am genuinely curious how demand for such things spike up. Is it social media? Influenced by someone etc?
I am not on SM, and I really cannot even imagine the peer?-pressure that drives normal, sane and reasonable people living in modern society to go after something so silly and be willing to part so much money for it.
I understand how it works with designer bags and watches etc where it's a signal for social status. But this bag? Come on.
Anyone know why? Or is it just that there is a positive feedback loop here of people wanting to buy this bag only to resell it for a huge return, and that causes the prices to shoot up. When really nobody actually wants to buy this bag to use? Sounds like a group-think ponzi scheme.
Not everyone values money the same, and not all money is valued the same even by the same person. I know that personally I value money below a certain level of wealth much, much more than I value money over that level of wealth. That level and the degree of difference in how money is valued above and below it will vary from person to person.
Why? This kind of crap is pretty common. Look at the madness surrounding sneakers, the market is so nuts that dedicated crews target freight trains specifically for looting the sneakers [1].
