The digital revolution, the rise of the smartphone and other mobile devices have been paralleled by a steady rise in the demand of luxury goods. This rise has opened up the luxury market to a huge pool of potential customers who are waiting for an opportunity to pick up the trendiest merchandise from their favorite retailer without worrying about geographical boundaries. Luxury retail thus can no longer afford to exist in isolation and has had to embrace e-commerce. However, can a web presence be enough to tap this wide market? Real time consumer demands for luxury merchandise is completely changing the way luxury retail operates. According to Forrester Research:
- 51% of luxury shoppers expect luxury retailers to have a mobile site
- 49% of the shoppers expect the retailers to have a mobile application
- 43% of the shoppers expect to be able to make purchases from these mobile apps or sites.
A research conducted by Google states that close to 100% of the affluent shoppers use a smartphone or other mobile devices and 29% use their mobile devices to research or buy a luxury product.
Luxury retailers have been a little sluggish in their move to mobile but according to the Forrester research, those retailers willing to adopt this option saw consumers using mobile channels two out of three times. Since luxury retails has always been about personalized and high-end individualized service the digital alternative has to live up to those standards. Sephora’s Beauty Bag app is one great example where mobile apps are used to create deeper customer relationships and create stronger engagement to maximize business.
Mobile sites gives luxury shoppers the flexibility to shop on the go. However, luxury retailers have to ensure that the consumers are treated with the same care and individualized service that they are in the physical stores. To do so, retailers have to provide high quality retail experiences by capitalizing on responsive design which adapts to the mobile devices making mobile browsing and shopping easy. Apart from making sure that the mobile sites are easy to navigate, are image rich and informative, luxury retailers also have to ensure that their sites allow a deep level of customer interaction. From something as simple as reading and writing reviews to using voice or mobile apps to help with customer support helps increase customer satisfaction and positively impacts luxury sales.
The time to go mobile for luxury retail is now. By tapping the mobile consumer, luxury retailers will be able to build a huge potential user base that could dramatically impact their sales figures.
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