La Blog

I don’t have many designer bags, but the few I do have, all come from Vestiaire collective, and I think I also got a pretty good deal on them.

Here are my top tips for getting a bag you love at a lower price:

1. Know what you want (but with a little room for compromise)

I know we don’t always know exactly what we want every time we shop, but this is the best way to get an item for great value shopping second-hand online.

Identifying roughly what model, size and colour of a bag or pair of shoes you want, before you start looking, will make things so much easier. You can make yourself more aware of fair pricing for the item and then search through the site more easily using the filters.

You can select the category you want to shop for and use the ‘filter and sort’ option and keep looking back at the most recently added items. You can even save certain searches on the app.

I would recommend searching a little bit out of budget though. This way you can favourite these items and keep an eye when they drop in price to get the best deal.

For example, I knew I wanted a small Louis Vuitton bag that would fit on my shoulder, so I filtered all handbags on their app to only show Louis Vuitton bags in brown in my budget and filtered out locations where the shipping would cost a lot. I looked back everyday, arranging the filtered results by New to Old. Eventually, I found my first designer bag. I bought this Pochette Accessoire for £295, as it retails for £1210.

This included Physical Authentication and Shipping.

If online shopping bores you, and looking through hundreds of items would be your worst nightmare. I would recommend looking at the products under ‘we love’ first, and then the better quality items in ascending price. But searching through all items fitting your requirements, would be the best way to find a good deal.

Make yourself familiar with the options on there, and favourite ones even if they are slightly out of your price range.

2. Don’t rule out bags just because they are not in perfect condition

Some of the bags I have bought from Vestiaire Collective have had something slightly wrong with them, particularly the more expensive models that otherwise I wouldn’t be able to afford.

One had faded slightly at the top, but on the side that would be closest to me; another had a stain on the inside. I knew that other people couldn’t see these problems, and I ended up getting a really good deal because of them.

Of course, this does not give the items great resale value. So, if you are buying for profit this is not something I would recommend. But, if this is a bag for you, and this is not something that bothers you, don’t let other people’s opinions make you think you need to have the top-quality bag and rule out items you really like at a price you can afford. I don’t even notice the fading or stains on my bags now, and it made me more comfortable using them because I wasn’t scared to ruin it.

3. Look out for discount codes!

They quite often have a discount code on and on every single purchase I have made I have always managed to get one.

For this Stella McCartney Falabella, I got a friend to sign up and buy a bag so we both got a huge discount.

The model I bought retails for £995, and I managed to get it for £259.50, including Authentication and Shipping.

4. Get Physical Authentication for peace of mind

Most of the time, for the more expensive models, physical authentication is included.

I would also recommend it for any purchase.

It is £15, and will 100% be cost effective for the amount of times you use the items.

5. Take Shipping into account

I was looking for a Mulberry Alexa for a while, before I decided against it. I love them but I wanted to put the money towards a holiday instead.

But, while I was searching there were lots of great bags at even better prices, but they were located in Australia and Hong Kong.

It worked out that with customs & Shipping, it was cheaper to buy a bag in Europe for a couple hundred more, especially as discount codes do not help out with shipping.

So when searching, take into account how much cheaper the bags from far away are compared to these extra costs.