Seven allegedly fake Chanel bags vs The RealReal

This is Planet Money from NPR. If you are looking for luxury, there is no better place than Soho in Lower Manhattan. On a recent Tuesday morning, I headed there to meet up with Hana Chop. She is a self described shopping enthusiast. Thank you so much for meeting me to go shopping. Yes. An honor. Is it? Any excuse to go shopping. Hannah is the perfect person for this task. She recently finished her MBA at Columbia. And while there, she was one of the VPs of the Retail and Luxury Goods Club. Everyone, of course, is a VP of something at business school. Point is, Hana knows shopping and she knows retail. We walk around and Hana points out the shops. There's Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada. We're passing Tiffany and Co. We're passing Mulberry, Canada Goose. Hannah has spent so much time shopping here that she's even developed some tactics. One of my favorite games to play well, it's not a game, but it's like, can you get the sales associate to give you a sparkling water? And it's a sign of how seriously they're taking you as a shopper. Hana's problem though, and maybe one of the reasons why she can't get that sparkling water, is that while she has a taste for luxury, it doesn't match her financial reality. I bought my first luxury bag in 2019, and I paid $1,200 for it. And, like, two days later, I immediately tried to return it. Because you didn't like it? No. I had sticker shock. I was like, what have I done? Anna really does not love the price of luxury. We stop in front of Chanel. I wanted to ask her about something that we can see in the window. There are two mini Chanel bags on display. Do you know anything about those bags by chance? Well, the the red one we're looking at is, it's a quilted red bag with gold hardware. The quilting is kind of Chanel's signature on their handbags and leather. You know your bags. Now comes the fun part. We're gonna guess just how much we think that little red Chanel bag costs. What would you guess that goes for? Like, 3,500. Okay. I'm going higher just because I've been looking online a lot, and these things are expensive. I'm gonna go with 5,000. Okay. Hannah hands me her iced coffee so she can look up the price on her phone. Alright. Similars are coming up. Okay. So the mini classic handbag with top handle, it's not quite the same, but it's close. Okay. Does it say a price? 6,600. I was way off. $6,600. Now, even though there is a part of Hana that would love to own this bag, $6,600 is far above her willingness to pay. With that kind of money, I don't know if she could get herself, like, 1,100 iced coffees, maybe pay her rent for a few months. But there is another way to …