Pressing Pause: 

Global Pricing Strategy and Shopping Excursions v Creating Fashion

Gucci 1991

Gucci 2017

Recently companies have started to change their Global pricing strategies to make all purchases similar though perhaps still not exactly equal.   For many years companies charged the cost of exporting their goods to far flung places and more fundamentally for their global domination ambitions though retail expansion only to find that customers preferred to fly and buy and save themselves some money. The knock-on effect of this newer strategy is a) higher prices everywhere for all, repeatedly increased once or twice per annum and b) fluctuations up and down continuously with currency conversion as 'suddenly' even European stores are left empty and SMs not making targets as some other country becomes the better fiscal option.  Even so there are still global shoppers who perhaps quite rightly feel they may well enjoy a nice holiday on the price differences from their luxury foreign shopping spree. 

I have many friends from abroad who marvel at the retail paradise I live in.  Obviously getting whatever at a bargain rate is very important to people whether they're shopping for peas or handbags. I am always amazed at the people who ask a thousand questions on getting tax back when they're off to spend thousands on one item and travel and spend on hotels etc. If I go anywhere save tax-free countries, I can't get a rebate but many come to the United Kingdom specifically because it knocks as much as 20% off when they go home. Everything is more for UK residents v tourists or dual nationalities. That's a factor why although the UK may feel like a shopper's paradise to many, its not always to the people who are stuck paying with the tax, I'm sure it's similar in other countries that operate the same purchase tax MO. 

There is a new optimism surrounding shareholders of luxury brands riding on the designer coattails of Gucci's 49% sales rise of the third quarter 2017 as they look towards a seemingly new generation of consumers who are not yet saturated with 'stuff'. Global expansion is superseded by the apparent new wild frontier of younger folk. However, away from the excitement, closer scrutiny at what is selling at Gucci and why has not been looked into. That current Gucci like Dionysus and Marmont bags are not readily available pre-loved on hundreds of agency resell sites plays into it and so is the pure joy of fun with fashion. It's not just about novelty, or re-branding grannies' glamour. When designers are allowed to create new worlds, build from dreams and conjure extraordinary visions new worlds open up, when investors demand return per annum, it's just numbers moving across a global digitalised board where people crunch numbers to outwit each other.