I may make myself unpopular with this take but I'm stepping up to my soapbox....
To everyone who asks about B/K prespend, there's a formula that used to be secret but is now being revealed by me, whose expertise has been gleaned by reading (most) every Hermes forum thread and the answers thereto on this subject. Pre-spend is a derivative of reseller price, to wit, the average price of B/K at major resellers equals retail price plus pre-spend, plus/minus 35% premium for Beverly Hills and Madison. No matter what appears in writing/on video anywhere, walking into a boutique seeking a MK or B/K25 is like playing the lottery. Yes, someone wins, but the likelihood that it will be you is somewhere close to non-existent.
As I mentioned in the Maintaining an H Relationship thread, economics saturates the search for a coveted B/K (arguably it saturates everything but that's for another thread). The reason these bags are priced at two or more times retail is because it costs two or more times the retail price to obtain one (prespend). The reason people opt to purchase from resellers is that you can get exactly what you want by whipping out your credit card, and there's no excess inventory (all of the furniture, yacht renovations, RTW and High Jewelry) to get rid of. Shopping at the boutique is not as certain a process (inventory, your status in the pecking order, your SM's fight with her partner that put her in a bad mood) but if you like many of the other things Hermes has to offer it can be rewarding, with patience.
To my mind, the answer to all of these pre-spend questions and variations (no, your circumstances are not really unique) is to write a check or fall in love with something else. Full disclosure: I have been offered unpopular (larger and more delicate) Birkins and other bags; I've been a fan of the silks and cashmeres for many years, and have dabbled in other metiers (no sofas
). I'm not what I would consider to be a high spender in this context and will never be a VIP although I feel obligated to say that this is financially rarified air we're breathing in here, many, many people have more quotidian concerns.
But I
have taken my own advice. I'm not especially a small bag person but I needed something to cover that hole in my wardrobe and decided to fall in love with something else because the retail effort/resale prices for a special occasion/quasi evening event bag were beyond what was reasonable to me and for my lifestyle. My little black clutch thing (
https://www.savette.com/collections/symmetry-pochette) makes me very happy and solved my problem with minimal fuss and expense. I'm also giving some thought to going the bespoke route for my next bag.
P.S. I made up the percentage number for a premium at BH and Madison because those seem to be special cases both in terms of tourist visits and financial make up of the local clientele. Further, from my reading, I suspect these observations are not far off for boutiques outside of the US; indeed, the pre-spend information in some boutiques in Asia is quite transparent.
