Why Hong Kong is a fledgling hub for pre-owned Hermes bags and other luxury goods

By Wynna Wong

Hong Kong’s market for pre-owned luxury goods such as Hermes and Chanel handbags has attracted a growing number of resellers from countries such as the Philippines and India, according to industry players.
Second-hand luxury retailers said Hong Kong had become a top choice for sourcing among Indian and Filipino merchandisers, owing to the city’s reputation for selling authentic goods, ease of travel and tax-free status.
They also pointed out that the city had a vast amount of second-hand luxury goods due to residents’ relative wealth.
Tim Lo Hiu-fung, owner of Coco Approved, a second-hand and consignment store that has been operating for 11 years, said the number of Filipino buyers had increased notably following the pandemic.
“We had quite a lot of Filipino sellers who literally just came in and took photos and then sent them to the clients or even did live sales,” Lo stated, referring to the practice of selling to customers through live streaming via social media.
The pre-owned luxury trade was put in the spotlight weeks ago when a male robber stole 14 pre-owned Hermes handbags before police arrested him and recovered most of the items.
Hermes is known for its secretive and exclusive allocation system in which specific highly coveted bags such as the Birkin and Kelly models are rarely displayed openly and are only offered to a clientele who have significant purchase histories or fulfilled certain “pre-spend” requirements.
For sought-after bags such as a Mini Kelly II, an original owner might effectively pay HK$150,000 (US$19,110) to more than HK$250,000 to acquire it, depending on the rarity of the leather, design and hardware, and including the purchase of other items to meet pre-spend requirements at the boutique.
This bag could then be sold to a Hong Kong second-hand retailer for around HK$150,000 to HK$220,000, according to observations by the Post, with Southeast Asian resellers adding their own margins.
Offering a peek into the quietly burgeoning business, Lo said that these Filipino and Indian resellers often managed to achieve “surprisingly, quite a lot” in sales.
He attributed this trend to factors such as Hong Kong’s relatively easy visa access for Filipinos and the significant wealth gap in their home country, where the affluent sought luxury items not readily available or with limited variety in local markets.
The practice of “live-streaming selling”, he added, had become increasingly prominent, with Lo describing its scale as “massive” in Vietnam, Thailand and mainland China as well.
He said its popularity in these regions had to do with issues of accessibility, where consumers in smaller towns or remote areas faced difficulties visiting physical luxury stores.

The online format allowed resellers to showcase luxury items directly to a wide audience, bypassing geographical barriers.
However, he explained the practice was less likely to pick up in Hong Kong as “everything’s just 30 minutes away”, and local consumers typically preferred to inspect products in person before purchasing.
Noa Kurumada, overseas director of Ginza Xiaoma, a reselling company specialising in Hermes handbags established in Japan in 2013 and with a Hong Kong presence since 2019, also confirmed the rise in the number of Southeast Asian customers.
But Kurumada said customers from Indonesia and India constituted a larger proportion of their clientele, followed by Malaysia and then the Philippines.
Kurumada explained that many of these customers were “industry players” who used Hong Kong as a strategic sourcing hub.
“They would come over, and they wouldn’t need to go through extensive authentication processes because we had already handled that layer,” she said, highlighting the trust placed in Hong Kong’s rigorous authentication standards.
These resellers often made bulk purchases, sometimes negotiating discounts, before returning to sell the items in their respective countries.
The sheer volume of luxury goods available in Hong Kong was also a key draw.
“It’s the bag culture in Hong Kong … people here are always ‘out with the old, in with the new’ and you get to buy, sell and constantly change and upgrade because … I guess that’s the city life,” Lo said.
“That’s one of the main reasons people come to Hong Kong to buy bags and sell them around the world, because it’s in our culture.
“In other places, they may struggle to find stock, but in Hong Kong, it’s so easy.”
The absence of sales tax and low import duties in Hong Kong further enhanced its appeal as a sourcing hub, according to Kurumada.
Managing director Shiken Ng of Lovintage observed a decline in luxury consumption from mainland tourists in Hong Kong, particularly among the middle class, although the “very rich” remained largely unaffected.
Ng pointed to a phenomenon where second-hand luxury goods were piling up on the mainland as demand weakened, driving prices down domestically.
This oversupply, coupled with a challenging economic climate across the border, meant the traditional flow of goods was reversing.
“Before, everyone wanted to get into Japanese auctions to buy goods to sell back.
“Now, mainland Chinese merchants are trying to figure out how to sell their goods back to Japanese auction houses,” Ng said.

This presented a unique situation where businesses with strong market insight and authentication skills could potentially source affordable goods from the mainland and sell them in other markets, including Hong Kong.
Despite the opportunities presented by new customer segments and sourcing routes, Hong Kong’s luxury second-hand market was still facing challenges, according to Ng.
He described the operating environment in Hong Kong as “very bad”, citing a depressed economic atmosphere influenced significantly by the property downturn.
He observed that many local businesses had entered “survival mode” or were actively considering exiting the market, with Lovintage itself pivoting to focus on overseas live streams and international sales.
The period following the pandemic also saw a re-evaluation of luxury bags as an investment.
Lo said that during the height of the pandemic, many luxury bags, particularly from brands such as Chanel, became more expensive, leading some consumers to mistakenly view them as financial assets.
“Don’t treat it as an investment; it’s meant to be a luxury, then it’s meant to be a joy,” he said.
“It shouldn’t be an investment because it’s going to hit you hard.”
He said the post-pandemic period “kind of brought things back to normal”, with prices generally falling from their pandemic-era peaks.

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