How to Stretch Your Luxe Brand Shopping Budget When Traveling to Other Countries
- Luxe Brand Deals
- Oct 19
- 3 min read
Traveling to other countries is a wonderful opportunity to experience different landscapes, cultures and foods to name just a few of the benefits. It can also offer great shopping experiences – different retailers, new brands, different stores. On a recent trip to France we covered all of those bases and learned a few things along the way about stretching our luxe brand budget.
The Champs Elysees in Paris is one of the most famous luxury shopping areas in the world. It is the land of Chanel, Christian Louboutin, Hermes and other French fashion houses as well as those from other countries including Bally, Fendi, Gucci and Tiffany. It is a place of wonder with large walking areas, tons of restaurants and cafes sitting alongside historic landmarks like the Arc de Triomphe. It is a place to let yourself be swept away a bit versus focusing on a budget. To be sure, it is not typically thought of as a place to find discounts.
Yet, if you’ve been following the site, you know we are all about stretching our luxe budget for apparel, handbags and footwear. And while we did allow ourselves to enjoy the splendor, we also learned a thing or two about saving money on luxury goods.
There a few key things that people tend not to realize when shopping in other countries.
The price for an item in one country may not be the same as in your home country. International luxury brands charge different prices in each country for a multitude of reasons - import duties and tariffs, shipping costs, exchange rates, etc.
In many cases you can get the taxes refunded on qualifying purchases.
Doing a little research can pay big dividends when luxe brand shopping abroad. We used this strategy to save some significant money during our recent visit to Paris and its wonderful shopping options including the Champs Elysees.
If you’re traveling to a different country and will have some time to shop, do some research ahead of time and you might be surprised at the saving you will find. Here are a few tips to stretch your luxe brand budget.
Check Prices BEFORE you leave - If there are some key items you’ve been excited about make a list of the items, the prices in your home country AND the online price in the country you are traveling to. You will likely notice that the prices are different. Sometimes quite substantially. The image below contains the US ($990) and European (750 Euros or $874) prices for the Gucci Horsebit sandals. That's a difference of over $115!
Check the exchange rate - Check to see how far your money goes (or doesn’t) in the other country. We traveled from the United States to France. The exchange rate was 0.84, meaning 1 US dollar was only worth 0.84 Euros.
Understand the tax rebate process in the country you’re visiting. In France there are many details to learn but as far as apparel, handbags and footwear were concerned we could get the taxes refunded if we spend over $100 at any store in one day. A few key points:
You must ask for the tax rebate form during your shopping trip
You must have your passport with you! Retailers are not allowed to accept photocopies
Retailers will walk you through the process and give you a validated form that you scan at the airport.
We followed this strategy on our recent trip to France and it paid dividends. Here’s a recap of what we bought, what we paid and the money we saved over the prices we would have paid in the US.
French Brands
The Pablo brand is not available in the US, so it gave us something unique to commemorate the trip. Its sister brand Gerard Darel is available in the US.
Note that these savings were not the result of any sales. The savings are purely from the differences in prices other countries and playing the tax rebate game. That’s $620 in savings purely from doing a little research and being prepared when you are shopping in another country.
Happy Shopping!
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