The Seamless Luxury Experience

Four experts were invited to discuss “the seamless luxury experience: harmonizing events, retail and digital strategies”.  Here is brief summary of what we learned:

All of the experts agreed to say that the luxury industry is facing many challenges linked to digital, omnichannel and seamless experience.

 “Digital is happening fast and furiously” said Robbin Mitchell (partner and managing director at The Boston Consulting Group), “Consumers are spending 20 to 25% of their total purchasing budget online.” “Digital revolution is a fact” added Marie Audier D’Alessandris (chief of Global and North American Marketing at Coach).

E-commerce is expected to grow by 12 to 15% per year which is really fast and proven by the following numbers: 

- Social and digital advertising is taking more and more space

- 50% of sales happening in stores are driven by digital

To answer those new challenges Marie Audier d’Alessandris explained that experience is at the center of omnichannel, IT/process and infrastructures are still major but it is the human that is really at the center of everything. Moreover, according to Amanda Knauer (senior manager, brand strategy and implementation at Cadillac) “omnichannel is happening very quickly”.

Djamel Toubrinet (Marketing Director North America at Cegid) went further by saying that “single channel retailing is dead”. Shoppers who buy online and offline spend more than single channel users. "In most mature countries, 100% of luxury shoppers have at least one smartphones, globally it is 95%" meaning customers are active online and share, reviews… and all brands needs to adopt now an omnichannel and digital strategy in order to survive the next few years.

But even if shoppers spend more time researching product online and comparing them “retail is not dead” explained Thomas Serrano from Havas Luxe, "people still enjoy going and buying in a store and there is a real synergy between the physical store and the online one, both driving customer toward the other".

The speakers highlighted 5 key trends in luxury brands strategies:

     1- Role of store

     2- Personalization / expectation of customer

     3- Digital social marketing

     4- Technology and innovation

     5- Mobile and big data analytics

The role of store is one of the biggest shift that happened lately, 90% of retail sales are happening in store but the store is not about only selling anymore but about providing an experience.

And as everything is connected it is extremely important for brands to have the same positioning online and in store, the same values need to be translated between all the channels.

For retailers a perks of getting into digital is the possibility for the marketing teams to better understand the consumers by studying behavior online but also in the store. It is more analytical and the analysis leads to more personalization. Those tools allow to understand the customer earlier in the funnel.

But even if nowadays all luxury brands seem to invest a lot into those new trends, a question remains: why did it take so much time for them to really integrate and use all these new tools (digital social media…). The experts explained that luxury brands are so high end answering high expectation that it took brands time to know when and how take the leap. It also takes time to translate the quality, heritage and experience that define luxury brands on digital, moreover being in the luxury industry means that everything has to be done perfectly.

One last reason for this “tardiness” of luxury brands getting into omnichannel and digital is that the industry used to target a mature market; thus being the first one to jump into the digital pool was not urgent. However with the babyboomer growing older it is the generation X and Y that are the future of luxury and thus there is a real need to fully integrate the digital/social world.

And as consumer behavior changes, it has been noticed that nowadays what is important is the emotional part. Potential consumers are looking to feel something among all the information surrounding them.  

To conclude the discussion our experts gave some advice to luxury brands:

- Invest in technology

- Be strategic and technical with a strong mission statement

- Make sure your CEO fully support the IT / business processes teams

- Make also sure to choose the right technology and have the right partner to help you along the way

- Make sure to be consistent through all your channels. 

If you are looking to optimize your processes and increase your productivity, if you are wondering how the digitization can help your company, contact us to discuss your needs. We know retail.