Secondhand luxury online

I'm a big champion for opening up the online space to luxury shopping, so I find this article in the Washinton Post extremely interesting. According to the paper, there's a growing demand for "certified, pre-owned" luxury goods in the online space. And so Portero.com, an auction site, has been offering luxury goods that are used but have been appraised and validated as authentic. The site aims to be the online equivalent of Sotheby's or Christie's, rather than an eBay style flea market.

In May, the Portero Web site boasted just the kind of fashion item that Sheldon believes exemplifies his concept: a used crocodile Birkin selling for $41,999 (a brand new specialty that Birkin can sell for as much as $85,000).

"Wouldn't you be more likely to purchase a $42,000 crocodile bag if you knew you could sell it after you got tired of it?" Sheldon asks. "Which one could I justify: Polo or Hermes? Which would I buy if one holds its value better?"

To make his experiment work, Sheldon has homed in on one of the nagging problems of high-end e-commerce: "People can't trust luxury online," he says.

He has found a way to break through that by taking a cue from luxury automakers such as Mercedes and BMW, which traffic in "certified pre-owned" vehicles - a fancy way of saying used cars that have been inspected and come with a warranty. He hires experts to inspect every item before it's put up for sale.

The items on the site come from individuals or dealers (where Portero makes an average 25 per cent commission on sales) or from the site itself. All items pass through Portero’s offices to be validated, professionally photographed and listed, and then gift-boxed before being sent to buyers.

With eBay hosting the vast majority of online auctions, a certified used goods auction site is an interesting experiment. It’s likely the site lacks the high volume of traffic that eBay gets, but I'd bet the traffic it does get is very high quality with plenty of users serious about making purchases. That Portero handles the auction and provides a guarantee with every purchase surely eases the minds of people who aren’t experienced with online auctions.

There's an aspirational market out there and Portero provides connoisseurs a space to find the exact items they want to appreciate; they might not see the same items anywhere else, and if they do (on eBay for example) they might have difficulty verifying them. With more wealthy people going online, Portero could be quite a success.

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