FROM last season’s Manolo Blahnik kitten heels to fine art and rare Ferraris, internet auction houses are awash with extravagant cast-offs.
After eBay turned the world into internet bargain hunters, cybersites are devoting themselves to a new second-hand market — the very rich.
Portero, a New York-based auction site, which has been described as “eBay for the affluent”, says that wealthy consumers think nothing of splashing out £9,000 on a “pre-owned” Hermès bag or £2,000 on a Picasso lithograph.
Buyers of more modest means have caught on. Cherie Blair showed the way with her Roland Cartier heels.
The Prime Minister’s wife became the world’s best-known internet bargain hunter in 2004 when she paid £10 for the “gorgeous, retro, vintage, disco-diva, 80s, bright red shoes” in an internet auction.
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Since then luxury buyers and sellers in internet auctions have mushroomed, inspired by the luxury-label mania of television shows such as Sex and the City.
Daphne Harvey, 25, a charity worker from southeast London, has spent about £1,000 on designer clothes, bags, shoes, make-up and jewellery in the past six months. “I can’t resist a bargain,” she said. “Initially I just browsed and it took a few months before I started buying luxury goods. Now it’s an addiction and I’ve bought about 30 things.”
Her pride and joy is an Yves Saint Laurent sheepskin coat worth “hundreds” that she picked up for £50.
Marc Cohen, a director of Ledbury Research, which specialises in luxury brands, said that the popularity of websites such as Portero, eBay and Bags to Riches, which rents out designer handbags, reflected the demise of the middle market. “Ten years ago everyone wanted to keep up with the Joneses and the classic middle-class shops like Marks & Spencer and W H Smith did really well,” he said.
“Now people with moderate wealth are trading up for things that matter to them and down for things that don’t.”
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GOING, GOING, GONE
Top sellers in the past six months on Portero