Current Events > luxury brands burn millions worth of clothing so the "wrong" people

(+) Yeah! (+)

can't buy them at a discount

https://www.newsweek.com/luxury-brands-prefer-burn-millions-dollars-worth-clothes-over-letting-wrong-1032088

High-end clothing manufacturer Burberry burned $37.8 million of unwanted products last year, sparking environmental concerns from its shareholders and a debate over the wastage by luxury brands.

Designer brands often destroy unwanted stock to stop it from being sold at discounted prices and maintain the exclusivity of their products so they are not sold to the wrong people, The Times reported.

In its annual report, the luxury clothes maker, renowned for its checked designs, $1,800 trench coats and $250 polo shirts, said it destroyed $13.76 million in beauty products and $24 million in ready-to-wear products and accessories.

This was three times more than in 2014. More than $116 million worth of Burberry products have been destroyed over the past five years, The Times said.
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I mean the clothes aren't actually of higher quality so nothing was really lost. They figured they would lose less money this way than if third parties undercut their prices. It's literally paying for image and the products are essentially intellectual property.

I mean, I loathe the entire idea of luxury clothing brands but everything is in order here.

I mean...I get it from a business point of view.

The X Dawg posted...

I mean...I get it from a business point of view.

I don't. It seems like they're leaving money on the table. Or more accurately burning it, when they could make some money by selling the older I bought items at a discount.
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Such a waste
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Seems wasteful.
There are plenty of companies that turn old clothes into rags and shit.
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Esrac posted...

The X Dawg posted...

I mean...I get it from a business point of view.

I don't. It seems like they're leaving money on the table. Or more accurately burning it, when they could make some money by selling the older I bought items at a discount.

Think of it in a very logical way.

Say I sell stuff at 1k each.

Now, my stock isn't fully sold, so I unload it to a discount resale place who sells it at 100 each.

People are now walking around wearing my products that are technically worth 1k for 100

My product is now devalued and when I go to sell the new batch, no one will want to pay 1k

Esrac posted...

The X Dawg posted...

I mean...I get it from a business point of view.

I don't. It seems like they're leaving money on the table. Or more accurately burning it, when they could make some money by selling the older I bought items at a discount.

Yeah, but they believe that having people who arent high-class wearing their items would tarnish their brand and its appearance of exclusivity, and that the revenue derived from selling their items at a discount is outweighed by the hit to their image.

I think its dumb too, but thats the general thought process
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i wouldnt want some homeless guy flexing on me with some Givenchy or Balenciaga
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rather than burning it, couldn't they recycle it into textiles and sell the material?
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lol, "luxury" clothes are no better than ordinary shit
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Two_Dee posted...

i wouldnt want some homeless guy flexing on me with some Givenchy or Balenciaga

Ooo, give the homeless the stuff to burn
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Note that I'm not justifying or defending this, merely explaining it purely from a profit perspective

That's actually genius

Most people would do the same if they had the chance
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Why do they make too much to begin with?
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DavidWong posted...

rather than burning it, couldn't they recycle it into textiles and sell the material?

They used it as fuel.

Makes sense from a business perspective, no one's gonna buy your bullshit $1,000 hoodie if they can go to the mall and get the exact same one for $100.

That said it's shitty and luxury clothes brands suck
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MC_BatCommander posted...

Makes sense from a business perspective, no one's gonna buy your bullshit $1,000 hoodie if they can go to the mall and get the exact same one for $100.

That said it's shitty and luxury clothes brands suck

Yep as with everything else said.

Recycling materials as suggested might be the better route though.

They're creating scarcity.
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they probably burned like $1000 worth of stuff
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that 200$ t-shirt was like 6$ worth of materials.
Your poorboy 15$ shirt was maybe 2$ worth of materials.

like, who cares, its just a brand label, no worse than burning a walmart plain white t-shirt.

you could sell the material to crafters for interior design. very selfish.

its also crazy that they make enough money annually off sales to warrant burning 25 million in product.
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AlephZero posted...

they probably burned like $1000 worth of stuff

This
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There this is ugly as well. There use to be a store in the hill billy town that I grew up in that had stuff that looked just like it.

https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5b50cc681900004b004fcc9f.jpeg?ops=1910_1000
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Esrac posted...

The X Dawg posted...

I mean...I get it from a business point of view.

I don't. It seems like they're leaving money on the table. Or more accurately burning it, when they could make some money by selling the older I bought items at a discount.

People will just wait around to get the discount instead of buying full price.

Same reason a lot of grocery stores will throw away food when its fixing to expire versus discounting it (particularly with fresh fruits/vegetables). Some discount a bit, but if they made it a major occurrence people would just wait until you could buy it for $1 instead of $5.
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Good stuff, I'd like my Gucci and Kenzo products to be exclusive as possible.

SLAMMING!
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Esrac posted...

The X Dawg posted...

I mean...I get it from a business point of view.

I don't. It seems like they're leaving money on the table. Or more accurately burning it, when they could make some money by selling the older I bought items at a discount.

once you sell at a discount, people expect the discounted prices.

Just look at people here going "I'll wait fo the steam sale

and the arguments that PC gaming is much cheaper cause "steam sales" its the same reason Nintendo does shit discounts and sells years old stuff at full price, they want none of that shit.
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electricbugs2 posted...

Good stuff, I'd like my Gucci and Kenzo products to be exclusive as possible.

SLAMMING!

hahahaha lmfao you sure are proud of wastefully blowing through your money electricdrugs
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orcus_snake posted...

Esrac posted...

The X Dawg posted...

I mean...I get it from a business point of view.

I don't. It seems like they're leaving money on the table. Or more accurately burning it, when they could make some money by selling the older I bought items at a discount.

once you sell at a discount, people expect the discounted prices.

Just look at people here going "I'll wait fo the steam sale

and the arguments that PC gaming is much cheaper cause "steam sales" its the same reason Nintendo does shit discounts and sells years old stuff at full price, they want none of that shit.

Some people. But a lot of people still pay full price for games. Just look at the recent Octopath Traveller. So many bought it at full price that SE had to issue an apology for not being able to keep it in stock.

I'm not saying they should discount it from, hypothetically, $1000 to $100, but it seems more sensible to discount it to, say, $800 before they trash it.
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When I worked for Goodwill I saw a massive warehouse of nothing but boxes on top of boxes of old clothes. Most stuff donated never saw a shelf, and it was all put through bailers and sold off to recyclers by the tons. You'd think instead of burning it they'd do something similar, but I really have no problem with it either way.
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Their product, their decision.

Is this what we reach to get controversy for clicks?
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Disgusting.
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I really feel like they could have been recycled instead of generating all that fire/smoke.
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That's ridiculous.
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Esrac posted...

The X Dawg posted...

I mean...I get it from a business point of view.

I don't. It seems like they're leaving money on the table. Or more accurately burning it, when they could make some money by selling the older I bought items at a discount.

Rich people like to spend outrageous prices for a sense of exclusivity. If normal people can get a hold of it, the brand looses all it's cache.
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wow, a wealthy business creating artificial scarcity? colour me astonished
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thanosibe posted...

Their product, their decision.

Is this what we reach to get controversy for clicks?

You aren't obligated to view everything from the business's side
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Antifar posted...

You aren't obligated to view everything from the business's side

Of course not.
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Esrac posted...

The X Dawg posted...

I mean...I get it from a business point of view.

I don't. It seems like they're leaving money on the table. Or more accurately burning it, when they could make some money by selling the older I bought items at a discount.

nobody is gonna be paying $250 for a polo or $1800 for a coat that was on sale last year

if they sell it all cheap it'll devalue the brand. and they're not gonna donate it to some poor place because that's not what those places need, and they'd probably just get stolen and sold off anyway

and all the stuff was probably written off at retail price, not at cost.
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LedZeppelin posted...

hahahaha lmfao you sure are proud of wastefully blowing through your money electricdrugs

Shut the fuck up Hothlin.
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It seems like the type of people who would pay close to $2k for an item wouldn't give a shit if it were sold for $20 at the end of the season. By then, it's trash to them and replaced with the new season's $2k item.

It's absolutely wasteful and highlights the ridiculousness of luxury brands in general.

But, we live in a world where luxury brands exist, and we willingly buy into them. So, silly as it is, it's a natural product of the system we live in.

Esrac posted...

The X Dawg posted...

I mean...I get it from a business point of view.

I don't. It seems like they're leaving money on the table. Or more accurately burning it, when they could make some money by selling the older I bought items at a discount.

I don't know how it works in the UK, but in the US iirc their unsold merchandise is subject to taxes (I think they're counted as assets) so that's partly why they're marked down or destroyed. Also as they said in the article, they're trying to maintain high prices that turn away a majority of consumers.
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It's wasteful for sure, and this is unequivocally a bad thing, but they fundamentally understand value. Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them.
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Goes to show how much of a markup they are selling it at if they can just destroy that much stock and still make a profit. Proof that designer brands are not worth the money.
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yoshifan1 posted...

Goes to show how much of a markup they are selling it at if they can just destroy that much stock and still make a profit. Proof that designer brands are not worth the money.

Kind of. Again, what they're proving is that things are worth whatever people are willing to pay for them. Essentially, through clever control of supply they can create a demand willing to pay whatever they ask.

It's more accurate to say designer brands are considerably less valuable for people locked out of these loops and communities.
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what are luxury clothes, like Supreme?
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The thing is, most people into fashion are completely aware that the material is not where the value lies.

They recognize that the brand itself is the entire value proposition. And so does the company. Hence stories like these.

I think I've come up with a great idea for them, they could make a bunch of ebay accounts and sell them as Chinese knockoffs, really convincing Chinese knockoffs. That way they'd beat out the Chinese knockoff market.
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