Luxury and prestige fashion goods are targeted at consumers at the top end of the
wealth scale. These products, which range from clothing and leather goods to jewellery
and other accessories, are classified as sensory goods. This is because their aesthetic
characteristics are best appreciated through the utilisation of the human senses of sight,
touch and feel. High fashion designers such as Dior, Gucci and Louis Vuitton have
created their colossal brand strengths through an emphasis on not only their product
designs and quality but also on the aura of the brand, which is mostly reflected through
the store atmosphere and the brand message communications.
The luxury experience is summed up in the store visit, the immersion within the highly
aesthetic, creative and prestigious ambience of the retail atmosphere and ultimately
interacting with the products through touching, feeling and sometimes smelling them.
The retail store plays a prominent role in the overall luxury buying experience and is one
of the key elements of successful luxury retailing. Atmosphere is associated with words
like mood, feeling, impression, environment, character, ambience and sensations.
Is it realistic to imagine that the physical luxury retail store environment can be replicated
on the Internet? Or that luxury goods can be sold online?
In the current technology and convenience-driven retail environment, e-commerce is
posing an indispensable complimentary distribution channel for offline retailers. Retailers
seeking new forms of differentiation are turning to e-retail to tap the market constituting
of millions of people that make up the online consumer population. More interestingly,
Internet penetration in several countries is growing at an alarmingly high rate. In the
United Kingdom, more than 11 million people consider themselves as “heavy” web users
and this trend is similar in other countries. By 2006, 54% of U.K. and German
populations, and 44% of French and Italian populations will be online, almost a 100%
increase from 2000. Also, approximately one quarter of the 40+ million US households
online in 2000 have incomes of over US$75,000 a year. The U.S. online retail sale is
also predicted to increase by more than 100% to reach $316 billion by 2010. U.K. e-retail
sales forecast for 2004 was £28 billion and the figure for the U.S was $144billion,
indicating a substantial growth rate. E-Commerce is now part of daily living in several
Asian countries including South Korea, which has the highest digital penetration in the
world. E-retail also influences offline store visits.
The demand for global luxury online sales is on the increase. Recent reports indicate
that the wealthy are almost all online and are pleased with making online purchases. In
most developed economies, Internet penetration is as high as 95% and the ratio of
wealthy people who have bought products worth above $250 online versus the rest of
the population is 3:1. This has given rise to the question of selling luxury goods online.
Website and e-store design seek to achieve more than basic, functional requirements
such as providing a conducive and pleasant shopping experience. E-retail involves a
constant flow of innovative means of differentiation that will meet the expectations of the
online consumer in order to generate more online traffic and maintain customer loyalty.
The challenge of selling luxury goods online is enormous. The luxury shopping
experience is different from the conventional shopping experience. Luxury goods are
<p align="left">Can the Luxury fashion brand store atmosphere be</p>
transferred to the Internet?
</font><p align="left">By Uche Okonkwo (Miss)</p><p align="left">©April 2005, Uche Okonkwo</p></strong><p align="left">sensory in nature and their purchase requires a high aesthetical appreciation and the</p>
utilisation of the human senses of vision, aural, smell and touch. This often requires
human and physical store presence, which is absent in the online virtual environment.
The Internet also lacks the exclusive and prestigious locations where the luxury stores
are situated. Therefore the question of creating a prestigious online atmosphere,
replacing the human senses in the virtual environment and matching ‘high class’ with the
‘mass class’ of the Internet world is justified.
Online luxury consumers have high expectations and this includes their belief that
although the luxury e-boutique is available to the masses, it should be designed to feel
right to only a select few. Fortunately, with feasible strategies, this could be possible.
Strategic luxury e-retail design and planning involves the utilization of certain key
elements to transfer the ‘looks and feel’ of sensory goods and the prestigious
atmosphere to the e-boutique virtual environment. These elements are:
</font><p align="left">Visuals, Sound, Smell, Usability and Personalisation.</p>Visuals involve the use of tools and aids such as colour-scheme, video clips, slide <p align="left">shows, three dimensional product view, zoom facilities of whole and parts of products,</p>
text font, style and size, interactive flash media, full screen mode and graphics. Sight is
one of the most important senses that retailers can manipulate to attract consumers and
contributes to grasping the attention of the shopper.
The first virtual point of contact of the luxury online shopper is the luxury brand’s
homepage. A strong homepage introduction is essential in order to create a high impact
and usher the shopper into the world of luxury shopping. Chanel.com is an example of a
luxury brand with a strong homepage introduction. The website opens with the classic
Chanel double C logo in a black background. The homepage is also constantly updated
and has featured soft jazz music and interactive flash media, with fashion models
showing products. Louis Vuitton also captures the attention of the shopper through a
homepage introduction featuring an interactive macromedia flash presentation of a
Hollywood celebrity, Uma Thurman modelling Louis Vuitton goods, although there’s no
background music or sound which would have complimented the experience.
</font>Chanel.com and Vuitton.com’s strong homepage introduction. <p align="left">The use of short and relevant video clips adds colour and excitement to the online luxury</p>
atmosphere, which is exactly what the luxury consumer craves on the Internet. Several
luxury brands like Dior.com and Vuitton.com have included video clips and slide shows
of their fashion shows, which gives the e-shopper a feel of human presence and
interaction, while Gucci.com offers only a slide-show, which is restrictive. Vuitton.com
and Chanel.com have gone a step further by providing additional video clips of
interviews with their creative directors Marc Jacobs and Karl Lagerfeld. Vuitton.com
even showcases the manufacturing process of its leather goods and Chanel has a video
clip of the opening of its largest global store in Tokyo. However, video clips ought to
have control options for play, pause, stop, rewind and fast forward etc in order to give
the online guest a sense of empowerment.
</font><p align="left">Chanel interview and Dior fashion show online video clips</p><p align="left">Interactive flash animation is another essential visual tool that contributes to an enriched</p>
online retail atmosphere. Jimmychoo.com and Coach.com have utilised this tool to touch
the core of the yearning of the current luxury consumer base. The two websites have
online catalogues that flip open like a real book! Coach also has a tool for product view
on a human form through the choice of an avatar of the exact height and weight
dimensions of the shopper in order to have a clear idea of the product size on the body.
It also allows the e-shopper to view leather goods either on the shoulder on in the hand.
This contributes to a high-impact and effortless online shopping experience.
</font><p align="left">Coach.com’s online flip catalogue and avatar product view</p>
Jimmychoo.com’s online flip catalogue
</font>In offline retailing, sound is used to stimulate different feelings in the subconscious of <p align="left">the shopper through music type, volume, pitch, tempo and other manifestations. For</p>
example, fast music is used to generate high shopping traffic inflow and spending, loud
and funky music is used to encourage impulse purchase while soft music such as jazz
and classical music are used to prolong the length of time that customers spend in a
store. Slow tempo music reduces the pace of human traffic flow and increases sales
volume. Familiar and nostalgic sounds such as waterfalls and chirping birds also
stimulate spending.
This strategy can be transferred to the web virtual environment and is most effective
when applied with a focus on the brand personality. A substantial segment of the current
online luxury consumer population are busy professionals that want to enjoy the
convenience of fitting online shopping within their hectic schedules. Therefore they
desire a relaxed atmosphere and sound and music satisfies this need. Chanel.com
again fulfils this through providing background tempo instrumental music throughout its
product presentation pages.
</font>Smell is a challenging human sense to transfer to the Internet virtual environment but <p align="left">technological advancement has made it possible for online consumers to have a whiff of</p>
scent while shopping on the Internet. A scent-smelling software called Digiscent now
makes this possible through a speaker-like device attached to a computer.
Luxury brands can use this device to sell goods that rely heavily on the sense of smell
such as perfumes and cosmetics. The absence of the sensory element of smell online
can also be overcome through offering samples of products from the website to
interested e-shoppers just as is done in offline stores. A first purchase of a scent-based
product usually leads to regular future purchases as a result of an affiliation with the
scent. Therefore, there is a high probability of repeat online purchases of scent-based
products. Scent can also be easily recalled and affiliation with a particular scent is hardly
outgrown.
</font>Usability is the backbone of a website and crafts the online experience through <p align="left">navigation and interactivity. It is also an essential element for a high-impact experience</p>
and can contribute substantially to a luxurious online atmosphere.
Luxury consumers expect reliable and fast service and at the same time, more value to
be added to their online experience through a high level of interactivity. The utilisation of
easy navigational tools such as breadcrumbs, full screen mode and new window tools as
well as several program choices i.e. Adobe Acrobat or Word versions of the same
document not only makes the browsing experience effortless but will likely encourage
the browser to click through several pages on the website. It is a surprise that several
luxury brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Jimmy Choo do not provide the ecustomer
with a menu to go back to the Homepage in its subsequent pages. This is
almost a crime in e-retail!
The product presentation and options for alternate views are indispensable for the luxury
brand that wants to replicate its physical store on the Internet. Several luxury brands
such as Gucci and Armani are still in the introductory phase of e-retail and therefore
provide basic e-store layout and minimal prestigious atmosphere. Others like Chanel
and Hermes have no e-retail activities. Private luxury e-retailers such as net-aporter.
com and yoox.com have seized this market gap and are reaping the profits
enabled by this opportunity. Net-a-porter.com utilises the usability tool to provide an
excellent product choice experience for the online luxury shopper through six different
view-choices of the same product.
</font><p align="left">Gucci.com’s basic online store and product presentation</p>
Net-a-porter.com’s alternate product view presentation
</font>Customisation and personalisation of products, services and web pages rank highestamong the yearnings of the current luxury consumer. In the present ‘Generation Me’, <p align="left">society, every consumer desires to be recognised as important, treated with respect and</p>
provided with personal attention. General e-retailers such as amazon.com and Britain’s
tesco.com have mastered the art of online customer page personalisation.
Why is this level of service lacking in the luxury online experience?
A number of luxury brands provide customised and personalised product services to
select clientele. With the widening of the luxury consumer base to include a new mass
class, the provision of this level of service to a wider audience is required. An option for
product or web page personalisation replaces the role of the offline shop assistant and
has the potential of enhancing the web experience. Gucci.com comes close to this
service through an option to contact a personal shopper but the online shopper has to fill
a form, submit it and wait to be contacted by the personal shopper, which stunts the fluid
experience.
Although challenging, it is possible to transfer the luxurious and prestigious store
atmosphere of luxury brands to the Internet virtual environment and it is possible to sell
luxury fashion goods online. The appropriate application of the elements identified will
contribute to strategic e-retail success through increasing online traffic, website
stickiness, online sales turnover and eventual profitability.
</font><p align="left">Uche Okonkwo is an Independent Business Analyst based in Paris. This Paper is taken from a Branding</p>
book she is currently writing with a special focus on the luxury sector. She can be contacted at:
</font>
