I usually can't brain people who wants to show off their branded bags when they themselves cannot afford one. However, it's also understandable because society these days look at how you dress and what you carry before they serve you. If you walk into a high end shop just wearing bermuda shorts and a plain tshirt with a non-branded bag, the salesperson won't even bother to serve you properly.

That aside, if you have money and can afford a branded bag, then just buy it at their outlet. Then again, I don't see a problem with looking for the best price around the world. Like you know Coach is from the US and it's cheaper there, so you go there and buy. But you should also know Coach in the US is not actually consider a luxury bag and their warehouse sales can be really really cheap. The thing is if you CANNOT afford, then don't buy a branded bag just to 'blend in'.

I don't believe in buying a branded item just to 'blend in'. Those who do it are very much fakes to me. I buy an expensive bag because I like the design, quality and practicality of it, not to show off and tell others about it. There is no need to tell people how much I bought the bag at. Like the saying goes, if you are rich, even if you use a fake bag, others will think that it's real (or even limited edition LOL); if you are poor and save all your money to buy that authentic expensive bag, others will think that it's not the real deal. There was this marketing research done before on consumer behaviours with different type of luxury bags, one group wants the brand logo to be 'shouted out' on the bag while the other group doesn't prefer that.

Lastly, in the luxury marketing world, there is this thing where they can't give too much discount on their product as it will spoil the brand image and expected price. People will wait for sales or discounts to buy, what's the point of having a high luxurious price then?

Well, shopping for a bag isn't as straight forward as we think. Lots of factors will affect how we view a brand and which product we will choose. Of course quality is one thing, then there's the status of owning the product and all that.

In my opinion, "cannot afford" means something like sacrificing money for basic needs to buy something really unnecessary. I've known people who will rather starve to save money just to buy a branded item that almost everyone is using. Is it really that worth it to do something like that just to get a branded product? In the end, like you say, it's how we carry ourselves. Some people can use branded stuff from head to toe but can't carry themselves well and still look cheap. In your example of sacrificing on other pleasures, that means you can afford already. Those things that you sacrificed are not necessities. Anyway, this is just how I see it, but who am I to judge. It's up to individual preferences.

Not exactly depending on income levels. I think it's actually how the brand is positioned in this country. They make it seems like it's a luxury brand when overseas it's actually nothing and almost everyone is using it. Like Victoria Secret can be considered high end here but overseas they give out free panties in letter box. It still boils down to individual preferences, there are many people who earn more than RM30k a month but still very down to earth and don't use Hermes Birkin. Depends what they are willing to splurge on I guess. I just don't see a point to show off an expensive bag even if I can afford it.

It is very much true that luxury items are seldom on huge discounts. You can see online we often are able to get Coach at a very low price compared to the retail outlets here, but how often do we see Prada bags or Chanel bags on discount? Most luxury brands do not have reject stocks as well, they will rather burn and dispose of all the rejected products and old season products when their warehouses are full.

Consumer behaviour is something very complicated. Everyone is different in their own way.