Seven allegedly fake Chanel bags vs The RealReal

**NPR** (0:00)
This is Planet Money from NPR.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (0:05)
If you are looking for luxury, there is no better place than Soho in Lower Manhattan. On a recent Tuesday morning, I headed there to meet up with Hanna Chopp.
She is a self-described shopping enthusiast. Thank you so much for meeting me to go shopping.

**Hanna Chopp** (0:21)
Yes, an honor.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (0:23)
Is it?

**Hanna Chopp** (0:23)
Any excuse to go shopping.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (0:27)
Hanna is the perfect person for this task. She recently finished her MBA at Columbia, and while there, she was one of the VPs of the Retail and Luxury Goods Club. Everyone, of course, is a VP of something at business school. Point is, Hanna knows shopping and she knows retail. We walk around and Hanna points out the shops. There's Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada.

**Hanna Chopp** (0:50)
We're passing Tiffany & Co. We're passing Mulberry, Canada Goose.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (0:56)
Hanna has spent so much time shopping here that she's even developed some tactics.

**Hanna Chopp** (1:01)
One of my favorite games to play, well, it's not a game, but it's like, can you get the sales associate to give you a sparkling water? And it's a sign of how seriously they're taking you as a shopper.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (1:13)
Hanna's problem, though, and maybe one of the reasons why she can't get that sparkling water, is that while she has a taste for luxury, it doesn't match her financial reality.

**Hanna Chopp** (1:23)
I bought my first luxury bag in 2019, and I paid $1,200 for it. And like two days later, I immediately tried to return it.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (1:35)
Because you didn't like it?

**Hanna Chopp** (1:36)
No, it's sticker shock. I was like, what have I done?

**Amanda Aronczyk** (1:39)
Hanna really does not love the price of luxury. We stop in front of Chanel. I wanted to ask her about something that we can see in the window. There are two mini Chanel bags on display.
Do you know anything about those bags by chance?

**Hanna Chopp** (1:54)
Well, the red one we're looking at is a quilted red bag with gold hardware. The quilting is Chanel's signature on their handbags and leather.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (2:05)
You know your bags.
Now comes the fun part. We're going to guess just how much we think that little red Chanel bag costs. What would you guess that goes for?

**Hanna Chopp** (2:14)
Like 3,500.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (2:15)
Okay. I'm going higher just because I've been looking online a lot and these things are expensive. I'm going to go with 5,000.

**Hanna Chopp** (2:22)
Okay.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (2:23)
Hannah hands me her iced coffee so she can look up the price on her phone.

**Hanna Chopp** (2:26)
All right. Similars are coming up. Okay. So the mini classic handbag with top handle, it's not quite the same, but it's close. Okay. Does it say a price? 6,600. I was way off.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (2:38)
$6,600.
Now, even though there is a part of Hannah that would love to own this bag, $6,600 is far above her willingness to pay. With that kind of money, I don't know, she could get herself like 1,100 iced coffees, maybe pay her rent for a few months. But there is another way to buy this little bag.

**Hanna Chopp** (3:01)
So in store, we saw Chanel top handle red.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (3:07)
Hannah and I are now shopping on the secondary market. She's a big fan of this site, The RealReal, which is a high-end luxury reseller.

**Hanna Chopp** (3:14)
And so we can see what that pulls up.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (3:16)
Okay, cue the cute shopping montage, but make it online.

**Hanna Chopp** (3:20)
This is almost identical to the one that we saw on the window. And it's going for $5,000.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (3:25)
Still kind of pricey, but there are more bags.

**Hanna Chopp** (3:28)
I'm seeing one for about $2,000, one for about $3,200.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (3:32)
Prices are dropping.

**Hanna Chopp** (3:33)
This one costs $1,325.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (3:37)
Okay, so that's less.

**Hanna Chopp** (3:39)
They're not bad.

**Amanda Aronczyk** (3:40)
On any given day, The RealReal is selling thousands and thousands of secondhand Chanel bags. For way cheaper than you can get in the store. For someone like Hanna, The RealReal is the perfect way to indulge your desire for luxury for less. And all that might be in danger because Chanel is suing The RealReal.
Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Amanda Aronczyk.

**Jeff Guo** (4:03)
And I'm Jeff Guo.
Over the past decade, the market for secondhand luxury goods has gotten really big. Whereas in the past, you might have had no easy way to buy that used Chanel bag. Now, there are lots of online resellers happy to sell it to you. But how do you know if it's real?