BTR | Geek Life: Augmenting Reality

I want to start this discussion by stating that I do purchase from both sites. Despite my thoughts on this one topic, I do enjoy shopping at Beyond the Rack (BTR) for various items, such as clothing, shoes and jewellery. There is one area of BTR though that boggles my mind so thoroughly, that I'm making a blog post about it. I've actually touched on this subject before (you'd think I really didn't like BTR), but I've now got real-time examples to show you on how cray-cray the discrepancy of price really is if you want to purchase a Coach handbag from either of these two stores online. These images came from both sites, only a few days ago, when Coach Factory Online had one of their frequent sales and Beyond the Rack had one of their many handbag sales running at the exact same time. So ladies, lets start with Exhibit "A" (Wow, I think I'm gonna start channeling my inner Jane... what? Am I the only one watching Drop Dead Diva?) : Madison in Cherry Red Despite the brightness of the bag in the image provided by Beyond The Rack, the two bags are exactly the same. In everything but price and in the business that is selling the product. If you're not familiar with BTR, their business is based on being able to sell authentic brands at up to 80% off the retail price. So they're not going against their own policy when selling the Coach Madison Leather Maggie Shoulder Bag in Cherry Red for 16.7% off their suggested retail value, but look at how Coach is pricing their own merchandise. Once upon a time, Coach suggested the Cherry Red bag was worth $358 when it was first introduced (and BTR managed to round up that original number nicely, for simplicity I'm sure,) but are now stating possibly a year later that it's worth $255. Even that sale price is cheaper than the price that Beyond the Rack is asking for. The kicker is that Coach reduced the price even further (across the board on all of their bags, not just this one), and still can't manage to sell all of their stock, yet BTR is sold out. Granted, BTR may have five of these bags whereas Coach has fifty to sell out to the public (example only, I'm not sure on their respective quantities, but I'm sure Coach has more of their own stock.) Given that this sale occured on the same day, two women are going to be all excited about receiving this gorgeous shoulder bag, but one of them will be $120.50 richer than the other. If you're thinking this is probably just an isolated issue, 'cause hello! the Madison Maggie's are super cute and popular, well... I got more. If it pleases you fabulous Honours, I'd like to present a couple more gorgeous handbags, Exhibits "B" and "C" for your viewing pleasure: Madison in Metallic Gold Again, the exact same purse (though BTR's pic is "enhanced" somehow), this time with $151.69 price discrepancy. And... Kristin Embossed Python Hobo Handbag Yep, that price discrepancy really is a whopping $201.49! You could by another, albeit cheaper, purse and have some change left over if you picked up your Coach bags directly from their outlet. Now a few things to consider are the currency ($ value) and shipping and handling charges, particularly if you're Canadian. Beyond the Rack is a Canadian company hailing from Saint-Laurent, Quebec Canada (and still carry the SweetSpot.ca logo, despite that Rogers site having been disbanded a few months back,) and if you never heard of Coach before (where have you been?!?), they're based in Jacksonville, Florida US. A few days ago, the Canadian dollar was up by like .02 cents over the American dollar - so you can consider these prices to be more or less at par. Shipping, on the other hand, is about $10 more expensive when purchasing from Coach. BUT, and that's a really huge BUT from where I'm standing, is that it can take less than a week for Coach to deliver the goods, whereas you have to wait for your order to first arrive at Beyond the Rack (they place their overall order to Coach, fcol), and then for BTR to send that item to you once they've received and processed that item. So you're looking at a rough 3 week waiting timing for your fab bag to arrive. I actually placed a non-fashion order back in May, and am still waiting for the item to arrive to BTR, let alone find it in my mail box. As I've stated before, I've purchased from BTR before, and right now they have some really fabulous wedges on sale for $14.99 that I WANT and am about to BUY. But please make some informed decisions before purchasing anywhere. BTR is actually not the only company guilty of over-pricing Coach handbags; the same can be said for both Amazon and eBay, but they're not necessarily in the biz to sell you fashionable items at discounted prices.

Tag: BTR

Gimme that Handbag: Coach vs Beyond The Rack

Technology. Collectibles. Travel.

Technology. Collectibles. Travel.