Why are people spending luxury prices on ordinary goods? One shopper investigates — while limiting herself to a single Cuthbert the Caterpillar
The Sunday Times
It’s 7.40am on a drizzly Thursday and I’m in a suburban car park in Cambridge eyeballing the lady in the vehicle opposite. Another car purrs gently into a parking space, joining ten already here. Its driver glances furtively around. At 7.54am, the queueing starts, and behind the shop’s glass doors staff are put finishing touches to displays.
Welcome to the hottest retail “drop” of the year — taking place at the budget supermarket Aldi.
You might expect to see fashionistas up at the crack of dawn queueing for the latest Louboutins or trendy teenagers eager to get their hands on the new collection from Supreme, but instead demand for one-off collections from high street brands such as M&S and Primark has been booming.
Last month was the hotly anticipated launch of Aldi’s Little Town range of wooden toys, known for their charming aesthetic and even more charming prices ranging from £2.99 for a teething toy to £54.99 for a climbing frame — just in time for Christmas. They’re already being resold for triple the price. What’s driving the high street reselling frenzy?
Admittedly, part of the Aldi toys appeal is the Nordic look. The Little Town range looks expensive, including tasteful pastel-coloured rocking chairs with no plastic in sight.
The star of the show is the £7.99 wooden Cuthbert the Caterpillar. They’re available only in shops, adding to their exclusivity.
But many visitors at Aldi today are clearly buying to resell. As doors open, shoppers dash past groceries before descending on shelves of wooden toys, piling them high into trollies with undignified relish. When I check my phone, I see the toys have already been listed on Vinted and eBay for up to £60. Hours later, there are hundreds more. Last year, when the Little Town range was launched, Cuthbert toys sold for up to £255 on eBay, more than 28 times its retail value.
Why would anyone pay more than own-brand items are worth? The psychologist Dr Louise Goddard-Crawley says a fear of missing out could be why consumers pay over the odds.
“Viral items signal popularity, triggering that fear,” she says. “Paying more might feel like buying into a shared cultural moment, a way of staying connected.” She adds that such a purchase may also trigger a dopamine hit that overrides rational thinking.
Goddard-Crawley says that buying viral items is often also tied to identity and self-worth. “The quick satisfaction from buying a viral item can distract from feelings like loneliness or inadequacy,” she says. “They symbolise status or belonging, helping people project an image they feel is missing.”
It’s not just limited to toys. Earlier this year, Marks & Spencer’s £45 leopard print jeans amassed a waiting list of 12,000 before they were restocked. I see a pair for sale for £65 on Vinted.
There’s also the must-have Primark jumper of the season — a boxy, crew neck knit popular on TikTok — which sells for £17 but was spotted on Vinted for £55. Typically, sellers have numerous listings of the same product in different sizes. Buyers set up alerts for listings and items often sell within minutes.
One such buyer is Molly Davies, 26, who recently spent upwards of £25 on Vinted for the £17 Primark jumper. She says she would have paid more. “They are few and far between,” says Davies, who is trying to get her hands on this year’s baby blue version. She says buying an in-demand item is part of its appeal. “I get a thrill from any purchase but this one was extra exciting as it was harder to get my hands on.”
In Aldi, it’s clear that some shoppers are peeved about resellers causing a scramble that pushes up the price. “It’s out of order,” says 32-year-old Sharnelle Farrow-Brown, who is shopping for her two-year-old. “Everybody is short of money.”
Others, though, think price-gouging is fair game. “People have got to do what they’ve got to do with the way things are,” says Karen Johnson, 54. “Times are hard.”
Could retailers crack down on the touts? One solution is to impose an item limit, just as there was for lavatory roll and flour during the pandemic. Although touts were lambasted for reselling Oasis tickets for hundreds more than their original cost, it seems that high-street retailers are more circumspect. A Primark spokesman said: “Often viral products which have flown off the shelves due to high demand are resold at higher prices. While there is ultimately very little we can do about this, we don’t want anyone to have to pay extra when we work so hard to keep our prices low.”
I resist the urge to fill my trolley and, in the end, I leave Aldi with just one Cuthbert the Caterpillar for my son who turns three this month.
Though I doubt he’ll fully appreciate that he has the most in-demand “it” toy of the season, I’m resisting the urge to sell it. But I can see why many people would.