Are luxury beauty advent calendars a rip-off?

The likes of Space NK, Harrods and Sephora have all sold out of their main calendars already.

The Harrods beauty calendar was priced at £250 but claimed to include items worth £1,600, while Sephora’s £199 calendar said it included items worth £1,000.

But you can find people selling them on eBay, asking for as much as £550 for the Harrods one and £399 for the Sephora one.

“It goes back to supply and demand – dynamic pricing,” says Sarah Johnson.

It might make sense to buy it even at an overinflated price, she says, if the retailer is sold out and you can’t get it anywhere else, especially if you perceive it as still making a saving on the total value of all the items.

This begs the question though of why firms don’t just make more.

Ms Johnson points out that it’s a seasonal product and they don’t want to over-order and be left with surplus stock that they would then have to discount.

Space NK told the BBC that it produced 30% more stock this year than last year but due to “unprecedented” demand still sold out within two and a half weeks. It plans to increase production next year.

Despite the expensive nature of beauty calendars, Ms Johnson says there is a “value perception” there.

“People could buy it to break it out and give [individual items] as gifts. There’s an element of people treating themselves and also being quite savvy and saving themselves money in the long run.”

With more and more of these calendars on sale now, there was a thought a few years ago that we might have reached “peak” advent calendar.

But Cissy Jones disagrees – and thinks the opposite is the case.

“They always sell out every year, so I feel like there’s room for more.”