Walmart selling Chanel, Fendi and Prada.
Speaker AAnd yes, you heard that right.
Speaker AAccording to Yahoo Finance, Walmart is making a big push into the luxury market and has tapped resale platform Rebag to attract wealthier shoppers.
Speaker AStarting January 16, the retail giant will offer over 27,000 pre owned high end items on its online marketplace including coveted pieces from brands like Chanel, Fendi, Prada and and Louis Vuitton.
Speaker AThe move follows the viral success of the work in a dupe made working ad Hermes Birkin bag and marks a significant step in Walmart's resale business.
Speaker ARebag's catalog will include luxury handbags, watches, jewelry and accessories ranging from smaller items to iconic pieces like the Birkin bag which can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Speaker AAdditionally, there will be 100 items sold exclusively exclusively to Walmart customers, the company confirmed to Quartz in an email.
Speaker AKelly, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you like Walmart's partnership with Rebag and do you think customers will actually come to Walmart's website to purchase items from the likes of Chanel?
Speaker BI'm really excited to hear what you guys score this as well.
Speaker BI spent a long time on this.
Speaker BI started in the middle and then I started to shift up.
Speaker BSo I'm going to give this an eight.
Speaker COkay, nice.
Speaker BI'm gonna give it an eight.
Speaker BI like it for a couple reasons.
Speaker BI like it the most for Rebag but I'll, I'll talk about why I like it for each partner.
Speaker BSo you know Walmart over the last couple years has been really trying to grow their marketplace and increase their SKU count.
Speaker BSo from that regard I think this is a really smart move because they're immediately getting access to a ton more SKUs.
Speaker BWhether or not someone's actually going to go think to buy a Chanel bag at Walmart.
Speaker BIf I'm Google searching for a Chanel bag now Walmart is getting visibility clicks from shoppers who would probably never go there for Chanel and maybe never go there ever.
Speaker BSo I think it is an interesting way for them to get access one to more SKUs and to potentially new consumers where they've already been starting to attract more of this know higher household income type of consumer.
Speaker BLove this for Re bag because the luxury secondhand market has been growing a lot and I, I've actually been familiar with the company for a couple years through social media advertising which is a really expensive way to acquire customers and they're still not the biggest name in this market.
Speaker BSo they've been starting to dabble in partnerships.
Speaker BThey are also partnered with Bloomingdale's which I think is honestly not as good of a partnership as the Walmart one because you have people who would be going to Bloomingdale's to buy these bags full price and you know, they have an option to buy secondhand.
Speaker BBut I think this is a quirky but really interesting pair for them to also just get a lot of visibility to their brand and, and also reach a younger luxury consumer who will only buy secondhand.
Speaker BA lot of the growth of this market has been driven by millennials, Gen Z, who through social media have a lot of visibility to these brands that they've never been able to participate in and now they're looking for ways to do that affordably.
Speaker BSo I think I also just love Walmart, like using the virality of the work in to now launch this totally new luxury platform I think is genius.
Speaker BSo great point.
Speaker DI wonder how intentional that was.
Speaker DIt was seated.
Speaker DYeah, yeah, it could have been.
Speaker DYeah it could have been, could have been because I.
Speaker BYou can now no longer find a work in bag on their site.
Speaker BThat came right down.
Speaker BHermes has pretty good track record at, at lawsuits with anti copyright infringement.
Speaker BSo yeah, I'm excited to see where this goes.
Speaker BWould, would love to hear your thoughts too.
Speaker AYeah, I mean Kelly, I think you bring up such a good point and we've said this the last couple weeks like this is a search game now and I think from people finding things on social media.
Speaker AI'm bringing in Google Lens again because that's what I do all the time when I see a bag that I like and now, you know, Walmart's going to be the first one that shows up when I find that bag.
Speaker AWhether it's through search, through typing in Fendi handbag.
Speaker ALike this is now a consideration that many people would not have made before.
Speaker AAnd I think Walmart's biggest issue right now, which again Kelly, I think you bring in the validity and authenticity that Rebag brings to this partnership because I think that's the biggest challenge that Walmart will have here is that yes, I see a fendi bag on Walmart.com 1.
Speaker AThis is weird because I didn't expect that it would be there, but now I have Rebag's name attached to it so that I know that actually this is going to be an authenticated bag.
Speaker AThis is the same thing.
Speaker AIt's just at a place where maybe I'd never considered, you know, shopping for this type of thing before.
Speaker ASo John, I'm going to Bring you in here too.
Speaker AWhat are your thoughts on this?
Speaker AAre you going to buy your wife a chanel bag on Walmart.com?
Speaker CWell, hold on.
Speaker DAnd what's your grade first?
Speaker DI want to know.
Speaker DOne to ten.
Speaker DWhere are you?
Speaker DAre you eight?
Speaker DKelly was eight.
Speaker DWhat are you.
Speaker AOh, I'm, I'm a ten on this.
Speaker AI think it's brilliant.
Speaker AYeah, yeah, I think it's total, total brilliant move.
Speaker AJohn.
Speaker AWhere.
Speaker AWhat are you grading and are you gonna buy your wife a bag?
Speaker ABecause I want to know this and.
Speaker CYeah, if she's lucky she'll get a handbag at some point.
Speaker CI guess I don't have a great track record.
Speaker CThis does, this does make it easier for me to up my game there.
Speaker CYeah, I mean I would agree and say yeah, I think it's a 10 for me as well.
Speaker CI mean I honestly from I think Kelly's perspective, kind of looking at, from everybody's view is a really good way and I don't see a downside for anybody.
Speaker CI was a little bit more focused on my first view on the kind of Walmart piece of this and I literally don't see a downside to this for Walmart.
Speaker CI mean, I mean people can say it's quirky, but they have I think like 150,000 sellers on their marketplace.
Speaker CThey sell a ton.
Speaker CThey compete directly with Amazon on this.
Speaker CSo why not get into this space?
Speaker CSo that's my first piece.
Speaker CThe other thing is Kelly touched on it.
Speaker CI mean this, the resale market is massively driven by Gen Z, even particularly more so than millennials.
Speaker CGen Z, I think I looked it up.
Speaker C43% have said they bought a secondhand item in the last 12 months and 83% say they are interested in buying a secondhand item.
Speaker CSo like the, the penetration of, of interest in this space is huge.
Speaker CAnd the final piece I'd have is it.
Speaker CIt again goes on to this topic of Walmart doubling down on growth strategies.
Speaker CAnd for me it's a growth strategy in two directions.
Speaker CSo one is trying to capture even more of that 100k plus household that we already know is is shopping more with Walmart and has been over the last 12 to 18 months.
Speaker CSo that's the first point.
Speaker CThe second point is now entering and attracting more attention from those, the aforementioned like Gen Z's.
Speaker CRight, which is not a space where Walmart traditionally attracts a lot of customers and really kind of people age into Walmart I guess is the way to put it.
Speaker CSo if they can attract those earlier, obviously you get More sales over the life cycle of that person.
Speaker CAnd I think it's, it's just very like it, it's low risk, it's high rewards and also it generates some clicks at this moment, right?
Speaker CIt's like, oh, Walmart are selling Fendy.
Speaker CWhat?
Speaker CLike it's very easy marketing play at this moment for kind of not a lot of downside.
Speaker CAnd it's just, for me, it's just so interesting to see all the different ways that Walmart are innovating.
Speaker CLike they're doing in like super like basic ways in grocery with private label, they're doing it in automation, they're doing it in high end luxury products.
Speaker CI don't think anybody is touching as many pieces as they are at this moment, which is interesting.
Speaker AI love that point, John.
Speaker AAnd I think you hit on too, the importance here of they're not just doing this partnership with Rebag.
Speaker AIt's not just a design partnership and poof, it's gone.
Speaker AIt's all of the things that they're doing around it, working it to be present at New York Fashion Week.
Speaker ALike they're really working to establish this audience and build this audience, you know, 365 days a year.
Speaker ABut Chris, I'll let you close it out, give us your grade and then explain why.
Speaker DYeah, or the Walmart rebrand overall that they just announced a couple weeks ago too.
Speaker DRight.
Speaker DAnd you know, I think the other point I make too, John, like before I get my grade is like, I think it potentially democratizes resale too because it potentially actually makes it available to all those older generations in a way that they were not able to, you know, view it or take part in it before too.
Speaker DBut I'm, I'm, I'm Spinal Tap on this one.
Speaker DI'm dialed up to 11 on this.
Speaker DI mean, I think.
Speaker DAnd the reason I say that is because I did something yesterday that I never in my life thought I would be able to do.
Speaker DI'm serious when I say that, like I typed Fendi into the search bar and I got 25 pages of results.
Speaker DThat's insane.
Speaker DI never would have expected to do that.
Speaker DAnd the, the only, and the, here's the cool thing about this.
Speaker DTo me, put my merchandising hat on.
Speaker DThe only Walmart customers that will have this experience are those that are searching for it, those that want it.
Speaker DIt's the perfect example of extending your reach digitally without alienating your customer base or your business model because you don't have to dedicate your space in the store to slow turning high priced items that could be too unaffordable for those people that can't afford them.
Speaker DBut this gives you that customer base.
Speaker DSo I think it's just a masterclass on digital retailing.
Speaker DAnd try, I mean, here's the other thing.
Speaker DAnd because I took a page from you on this one, try searching for Fendi at Target and let me know what you find.
Speaker DMy hunches, it's going to rhyme with a big fat donut that, that's what's there.
Speaker DThere's, there's nothing there.
Speaker DAnd so Walmart's killing it on every angle.
Speaker DAnd to John, to your point, the scale at which they're doing this too is just so impressive.
Speaker AYeah, it's coming from every department out of that retailer right now.