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by eridius 3499 days ago
You can't just take any product, mark it up 10x, and call it a luxury good. People would laugh at you and buy the regular one. A luxury good has to have some reason to justify its luxury status.

In this particular case, the $60 NES Classic is already a luxury good. Marking it up 10x doesn't make it more of a luxury good, it just either means people who actually want to use the damn thing can't afford to, or must pay exorbitant prices.

3 comments

Or to take another example, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkin_bag

Edit: here's the Planet Money podcast episode I heard about them on: http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/12/25/460870534/episo...

Sometimes "luxury" is being the first to have something. Some find it worth $540 to have one of the first.
Um isn't that exactly what designer purses and clothes are? A $300 pair of jeans doesn't cost 100x more to make than a $30 pair of jeans.
A $300 pair of jeans also isn't indistinguishable from a $30 pair. And you're talking fashion here, where the value is derived from the associated brand. That's not at all the case with people buying up a $60 item and reselling it for $600. They are providing literally no value at all to the buyer.