Independent buying guides
For UK buyers weighing a new designer bag against a pre-owned one. Each guide takes a single buying question, cites dated figures, and sets out the resale-value formula so you can change the inputs yourself.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Handle drop, base width and empty weight decide whether a bag gets used. Measure what you carry first, then let cost per wear settle the price.
Photo: Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer), Les cuirs d'Agathe · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Resale, care and repair all move cost per wear more than a discount does. The arithmetic, plus what import VAT adds to a bag bought abroad.
Photo: Chayquo Shumo · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Authenticity
What the description legally commits a seller to, what the leather rules require, and the physical checks that work without any brand-specific knowledge.
Photo: Photographer for the Rhode Island School of Design - Museum of Art · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Applies a yearly retention rate you choose to a purchase price, and shows the cost of ownership.
value after n years = price x (retention rate) ^ n; cost of ownership = price - value
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Price divided by the number of wears you realistically expect, with cleaning and repair added.
cost per wear = (price + cleaning cost per year x years + repairs) / (wears per month x 12 x years)
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: J.S.Campbell Jenmedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
How to tell genuine from convincing.
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Photo: Servinemilio · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What things are made of, and how long that lasts.
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Photo: FAIWOODAS Shaumi · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Chayquo Shumo · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
What holds value, and what does not.
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Photo: Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer), Les cuirs d'Agathe · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Keeping it usable for years instead of months.
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Photo: Chayquo Shumo · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
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