Comment by twoodfin
2 months ago
I suspect high-end merchants get that the financially well-off potential customers who hold high-fee rewards cards expect to be able to use them. Worth the 3% on a high-margin purchase to attract the customer vs. annoying them.
The fee ends up split between the cardholder, bank, Visa/MC, maybe the card brand sponsor… everyone’s happy.
I’m still convinced that someone could play our playbook and it would work. Just someone with deeper pockets and deeper industry connections.
Luxury is struggling in 2025 and is losing to the resale market which is growing 3x faster. They’re especially struggling with gen z. Build a branded luxury-only payments network that owns the category “buy to resell”. Attach purchase metadata to pay-by-bank identity for digital proof of purchase.
You have to play it right (digital proof of purchase generates social media posts and a verified stamp, ie buying it to flex). But that way you can convert young customers from rewards cards AmEx etc without having to compete on rewards