UK is Top Place to Buy Luxury Goods

If you are looking for that luxurious bag for Christmas then you may not have to go very far, no further than Bicester Village in Oxford in fact. Tourists, especially from China, are flocking to the UK to purchase luxurious goods from European fashion houses as they have to pay large taxes on the goods back home. Angela Ahrendts, Burberry’s chief executive, has come up with the term “Travelling Luxury Consumer or TLCs…” due to 10% of Burberry’s sales being made from these consumers.

 

Image from Telegraph.com

The fear of the Japanese earthquake back in March was cushioned by the rising wealth of the Chinese, although over the summer the luxury groups share markets dropped by 25 % over the fear of the markets slowing down. However, this doesn’t seem to have stopped the Chinese from spending 6 times as much in England on luxury goods as they would in China. “Saying ‘I bought this in London’ adds further cachet.” says Ahrendt.

The up market department store Harvey Nichols reported a 32 per cent boost in post-tax annual profits because of foreign consumers and the world renowned Harrods, who hit the £1bn sales mark in 2011, commented that their top spending foreign consumer was the Chinese spending an average of £3,500 per visit.

Words by Adriana Panas-Webb