From Naver:

High End Luxury Bag Rentals Available for the Price of a Cup of Coffee

Spending a fortune on luxury bags can be burdensome and come across as greedy.

A new trend is spreading to allow consumers to carry such bags for only the price of a cup of coffee.

Reporter HyungJun Ahn has the story.

Reporter

There are dozens of luxury bags here, each costing well over $1,000 retail, but the owners are all different.

“So pretty.”

Called “Luxury Goods Social Platform”, the service allows patrons to deposit their own handbags and sport new ones for W20~30,000 per week.

Security stickers have designs that are altered when pulled off and re-applied, preventing bags from being switched out.

For members who don’t trade in a bag, there is a rental fee of about W50,000, 40% (W20,000) of which goes to the dealer. Rent a bag out for 4 weeks, and that’s W80,000 in the dealer’s pocket.

Member satisfaction tends to be high.

“I think it’s a great thing, to be able to change up your bag for the price of a cup of coffee. It’s fresh and new,” says Hyejin Im of Seoul’s Hongje-dong.

The demand for these bags spikes in March and April, as parents arrange meetings with their children’s head teachers [note: in order to impress].

“How many people can afford $2~3,000 handbags? Sharing and swapping offers this experience,” says Bongju Lee, spokesman for CoLux.

There are also places popping up where consumers can send in clothing they have outgrown in exchange for online credit, which can then be used to purchase larger sizes at a cheaper price.

After being carefully cleaned and mended, the majority of the clothes uploaded onto the site are priced at under W5,000. The site also has freebies to share as well.

“If you use online credit smartly, you can save upwards of 80~90% on the price of clothing, compared to buying only new clothes,” says Seong Hyung Lee of the clothing exchange website Kiple.

A portion of the clothing is sent to a non-profit organization assisting children in Africa.

“The rise of personal ownership leads to many inefficiencies, expensive price tags, and higher costs. We need to bring these things down,” says Ehwa University professor of management, Hee Dong Yang.

This “peer-to-peer rental system” began in the United States after the financial crisis of 2008.

As this new consumer trend took hold, about 70 of these companies have popped up domestically.

Comments From Naver:

anxnrk2

What’s with people buying these “luxury paper bags” for W50,000? Good God, I’d love to know what they are thinking.

song****

What a sad society we live in… Can’t part ways with our luxury bags and don’t have any money…

park****

Do you really want to carry around a bag this badly? So pathetic.

baby****

What a load of shit. Just how much does a cup of coffee cost? Really reeks of “bean paste girl” talk.

tokt****

Dutch-pay is the start of gender equality.

wjdw****

Our country is still really far out there. Who needs a luxury bag when they meet with their kids’ head teachers? Parents and teachers …they are all the same!

doas****

Should one’s teacher pay a home visit, they’d have to rent a new house! kekekekeke

dudd****

Guys do the same thing when they rent Ferraris. kekeke

love****

Looks more pathetic than buying it.

dudu****

What’s the psychology behind men who fork out W50~100,000 just to cuddle and kiss a girl for two or three hours? Get a room, pour a few drinks and spend a bit more on round two. And women doing the same thing by renting a bag for a few days for W50~60,000 is pretentious?

btoo****