Faberge.com Sells $7 Mil Baubles To Special People Only
The reborn Faberge has decided that the rich don't shop online like the rest of us.
At the public-facing site launched by Faberge's new owners, gone are such bourgeois trappings like buttons, prices, adding items to your cart, or really the ability to do much of anything. For the hoi polloi, that is.
To see the catalog, you have to schedule a time to speak with a Faberge rep. Only at the end of that conversation are you issued a client login to the rest of the site. You arrange a chat by clicking around the site until "Discover More" pops up on the right, which you then click upon. Indeed, Faberge.com slips on that fine line in user interface design between the intriguing and the annoying. It's also entirely Flash-base. How gauche.
After online perusal, jewel-toting employees can whisk to your abode for an in-person showing. Home delivery, and the company's flagship Geneva store, will comprise the entirety of the company's retail operations. Is this streamlined approach to pushing encrusted baubles a viable way for a luxury brand to survive in our new, deadly, economic climate? We'll see. Just don't expect them to add Paypal any time soon. Faberge [Official Site] Faberge Asks Rich to Surf Web for $7 Million Brooches [Bloomberg]
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Comments:
The second link has a typo
The folks who actually shop on this site should end up victims of the same fate as Faberge's last set of big-spending customers, namely the Romanovs.
It's fab not farb on the link, just FYI!
The entire site is flash. My flashblocker pays off yet again.
I want to be incredibly wealthy. Simply to set up this kind of an appointment, go into the store, show cash up front for a ridiculously expensive thing, and then ask them to suck on it, and walk out with the cash.
A store that truly comes to you? Awesome.
I would ask myself for a receipt everytime I left the house.
Hmph. Guess they don't accept ebt cards or bartering. Get with teh times!
All of the hoops you have to jump through just makes me feel like Faberge thinks it's better than I am. Which is probably true, as I could never hope to afford anything they make, so I guess their ploy is working.
My inner magpie, however, desperately wants that ring...brooch...whatever pictured in this post. I don't even know what the hell it is and I'm basking in its glittery glory.
Some interviewer at a car show asked the Ferrari rep why they don't advertise locally. Ferrari said "we make an effort to know all our eligible (i.e. could afford one) customers personally." I'd guess this is the same way. You don't go shop for a Ferrari. If you can afford one, they'll find you.
The chat is really a few questions posed to the potential customer, and all must be answered "yes" to continue:
1) Is your net worth over $50 million US?
2) Are your liquid assets greater than $5 million US?
3) Do shiny, expensive items make your indolent and parasitic lifestyle seem worth living?
4) Do you have an irrational hatred of poor people?
5) Do you have way more money than brains?
"...gone are such bourgeois trappings like buttons, prices, adding items to your cart, or really the ability to do much of anything."
What's the matter Faberge? Worried that the grubby, under-funded masses will leave their poverty cooties on your precious site should they be allowed to interact with it?
Keep your shiny crap. I can buy an awful lot of books for the price of a single, ugly, encrusted bauble.
@settsu: Probably so, but if you can put them at a certain place and at a certain time, it would be child's play to get the drop on them.
I came here for the Michael Moore style comments and haven't been disappointed yet.
Even though it's small, buying a Faberge trinket is akin to buying a car or a house. Lots of paperwork. I don't see it as being much different, regardless of what the item is - it's large amounts of money going from point A to point B. It gets significantly riskier after a certain dollar amount, and much more exclusive. Not very many people can afford these types of things, so I don't see it as being an extreme inconvenience that they can't just buy it online. You can't buy Van Cleef and Arpels online, either.
@glevkoff: Conned by a crazy Siberian mystic and executed in a bloody revolution? That's harsh, even for douchebags with too much money.
@diasdiem: Well considering so many of the uber rich douchebags became so by abusing workers and ripping off consumers there are probably some that deserve such a fate.
Bleeding Gums Murphy: I'd like another Faberge egg, please?
Man: Sir, don't you think you've had enough?
Bleeding Gums Murphy: I'll tell you when I've had enough!
@pecan 3.14159265: After hearing of an antique dealer that was screwed out of a $10,000 piece of furniture from an online sale I could sort of see their logic. Shipping out a ring worth $100k to find out that the charge was reversed or bogus after the fact could be a problem.
@h3llc4t has a slow work day: You know, I think I've finally answered the question, "if you were an animal, what animal would you be?" I'd be a magpie, because I love shiny things. Sparkly, shiny things. I'm also easily fascinated watching a swimming pool of water.
A good choice in terms of maintaining the profile of the brand, frankly. It's not like any of the commenters here were in the market for their merchandise before being 'turned off' by their flash site or lack of one-click shopping carts.
@bohemian: By having their entire families dragged into a basement in the middle of the night and shot in the back of the head, then dumping their bodies in a mass grave?
Because that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
@Rectilinear Propagation: I don't think they are snooping. It may be pretty easy to figure out who is of the circle that can afford one (social events, the who's who in the financial world, celebrities, etc).
@Aaron Poehler: Agreed. It's partially to protect the brand, but I don't get why they don't let you see any of it online at all. Why not put photos on the website? Some esteemed jewelers, such as Tiffany, do provide online shopping, but others, such as Van Cleef and Arpels (which is more expensive and high-profile than Tiffany) do not. Neither does Harry Winston. But the difference is, both companies use their websites to showcase their collections - you may not be able to afford them, but you can sure look at them.
@DH405: When you become a bellydancer you stand an excellent chance of developing a disturbing love of all things shiny. The style that I dance often incorporates a lot of silver jewelry and baubles in its costuming, so now everything shiny/glittery starts me thinking of what costume pieces I could pair it with. There are worse fixations to have, but not many.
@pecan 3.14159265: Mmm... encrusted booooks...
But wait, what if I want my jewels to be encrusted with books?
@Smashville_makes his own comments at home: *Looks at the current state of the economy, job market, and our national debt*
I don't think that goes far enough. Any way we could work in some torture? Nothing major, just some wires attached to genitalia that are attached to a car battery.
@ArcanaJ: YES!
I can see it now: Diamonds covered with copies of "Twilight" embedded into abstinence rings.
We'll make millions...no, BILLIONS!!!
@Keavy_Rain: I was waiting for the jewel-encrusted version of Steal This Book to hit the library or bookstore shelves.
Welcome to America, where we dare not make jokes about rich douchebags...
@glevkoff: Joking is making a humorous statement.
Saying that their families should be executed is not a humorous statement.
New Scientist magazine reported that in the future, cars could be powered by hazelnuts. That's encouraging, considering an eight-ounce jar of hazelnuts costs about nine dollars. Yeah, I've got an idea for a car that runs on bald eagle heads and Faberge eggs. - Jimmy Fallon (Weekend Update)
I haven't tried, but from the screenshot included here it doesn't seem like they are actually restricting who can register for access to the full site
Sadly, bugmenot has no logins for Faberge.com D:
@moore850: I technically have a 2.5 MM trust fund. And my name came up "in those circles" when I turned 25 and I could have access to it. Sadly though that money is to pay for my medical needs (I have cerebral palsy and I need 24 hours in home care and other medical equipment)
I was contacted by Mercedes Benz though (I owned a MB wagon at the time that was handicap accessible) and I asked them if they could make their S series to be accessible. Never heard from them again.
If you can afford to buy Fabrege, why not go all out and buy an original piece from the 19th century? I'm sure there are few pieces sold by Sotherby's etc.
(by the way, Fabrege originals are AMAZING. Saw some at SFMOMA earlier this year.)
@Smashville_makes his own comments at home:
Smashville, are you always such a literalist, or is it only when rich douchebags are the target that you become so serious?
God, don't ever listen to any Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce or George Carlin material. You might suffer a cardio-cerebral explosion of outrage if you should.
I wonder if anyone will employ this method to rob their "jewel-toting employees".