TimeOut

I feel a lot of empathy for the stores and jewelers.  First of all, the brands have created this strategy of implied shortage as a pillar of their brand.  Rarity, exclusivity, and difficulty to obtain adds to a product's allure.  Thus, I very well understand that this is a game that retailers and brands play.  Moreover, I find this practice employed by brands and retailers to be a very fair practice.  Lastly, if you're new to the game and following a trend...  You'll forever be chasing the things you can't get.  You have to be a pioneer, take some risks, and go after things you like without care of resale value or trends.  Set your own trend.  

Some legal arguments in favor of Hermes... 

For instance, Hermes will likely be able to prove that there is no "exact amount of spending" that makes you eligible for a Birkin/Kelly handbag.  And once they prove that nothing was ever "promised" or "strongly implied" then it will be argued that no contract was communicated, then customers have no recourse, because Hermes sales employee never went into a verbal contract with the client.  The sales associate never said, "if you spend $300,000 with Hermes this year, you will be offered a handbag within 12 months."  A contract legally has to have a timing, and both parties exchanging something specific.  But if the sales person does say, "they're very hard to get, I will help you get one, but you'll need to support this store a lot," then nobody is on the hook since nothing specific was defined and thus this would not be considered a contract.  

This suit was likely largely inspired by the individual who sued another jewelry store in our local area for not being able to get a specific Patek Philippe Nautilus after spending $200K+ with the jeweler.  The problem with that suit is that - that individual paid $200K for jewelry, got $200K of value in jewelry, and is thus not economically damaged.  True, he would not have spent the $200K if he didn't think he was going to get a Patek Philippe Nautilus at retail price.  And now he's willing to hire a lawyer to create bad press for the jeweler and then get a settlement.  This lawyer knows that there's no legal standing here.  But the lawyer is probably confident he can exhaust the jeweler to settle.  And will threaten the jeweler with more bad press if they don't.  The lawyer probably is taking a 30% contingency (aka commission) on the case, so it's likely the plaintiff (the upset customer) is not risking a lot of money to hire the lawyer as most of the lawyer's pay is in the contingency which the lawyer only gets if he wins.  

The other more interesting point of this lawsuit is that they're accusing Hermes of anti-trust practices.  This is a more serious accusation.  But the legal defense Hermes has at its disposal here are numerous.  One such strategy they can employ is they can simply say: these handbags are works of art.  Once something is legally defined as "art" then the laws in USA surrounding it are much more vague.  A store is not required to sell a collector a specific work of art.  An art gallery can legally select whom they want to sell a work of art to if it's not offered in an auction format.  For instance, the gallery can sell this Picasso to Mr. Movie Star over myself because they think getting a client like a movie star will open doors and prestige to the gallery.  Legally, the gallery cannot then come back to me and say, "you need to buy more art or you need to offer more money" although I'm not saying this doesn't happen.  Hermes may not go down this "art" path though - as opposing counsel will argue "it's not art, they have regularly produced commodity pieces with SKU numbers."  It's hard to prove these bags are art.  Especially if there are regular identical models produced - a 30cm all black Birkin made of Togo leather is the same as the next 30cm all black Birkin made of Togo leather.  

So my point is this.  If you're able to be coerced, then you probably allowed the coercion to happen.  I won't say anybody who has been coerced are stupid - Wei Koh already called people who don't like Rolex's 2024 novelties that - but I'll ask those very smart people...  "Are you sure you didn't allow yourself to hear what you wanted to hear?  What's another word for that?  Coercion."  

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