> But as Solca observes, there are good commercial reasons why rationing by queue rather than price can make sense.<p>> First, it gives Hermès a buffer: even if demand drops, sales will not.<p>> Second, it creates surplus demand for the bags, which overflows into demand for other Hermès products. Much of the firm’s business consists of selling consolation prizes: wallets, belts, beach towels and so on. As J.N. Kapferer of the Inseec Luxury Institute in Paris observes, the wait induces “impatient buyers to switch to other products of the brand, to calm their hunger until the much-awaited object of desire is achieved.”<p>> Third, although market-clearing prices might raise profitability in the short term, in the long run they would drive French women away, leaving nouveaux riches from the developing world as the bags’ main buyers. If elegant Parisiennes lose interest, so, eventually, will women who aspire to be like them.<p>'economics' would make more sense if offered as a humanities course