Luxury Marketing: The Challenges In Creating E-commerce For Luxury Brands

• Date: 13 January 2021
• reading time: 4 Minutes
• Blogger: Vikram Rana
• E-mail: [email protected]

Luxury is a very common word in our vocabulary. We use this term to refer to cars, houses, clothes, beauty items, accessories, and several other items with high values ​​that border on inaccessibility. However, the number of buyers of high-end items is growing more and more, especially after the explosion of the Hype culture, popularized by the video sequence about " how much the outfit costs ". The other side of the coin in this positive scenario for the luxury market is the challenges of meeting the new form of consumer consumption in the digital environment.

It is not necessary to force our thinking to notice how different high-end stores are from popular consumer stores. In conventional shopping malls, stores serving mass consumption are marked by numerous signs, banners, and signs that warn of discounts, offers, and promotions for a limited time. In addition, this type of commerce also usually has a low number of attendants, allowing customers to perform a kind of self-service in most cases.

High-end establishments, in turn, have clean facades and little information, highlighting the pieces that are on display and the brand. The discretion and absence of pricing tactics are just some of the main factors that highlight the distinction between the methods and processes used in each purchasing segment.

All these peculiarities are intensified when it comes to creating a personalized space for luxury brands in the online world. Next, we'll see what the challenges and solutions are when it comes to creating a virtual store for high-end brands.

The basics done right is a good way to start

In fact, luxury stores are not easy structures to create, it is essential to invest in a good team to get the plans off the ground. One of the big problems with big brands is skipping basic but essential parts of the project. During the planning and structuring stages of e-commerce, it is essential to consolidate the creation of your store on the basic pillars of usability, ensuring that all users will be able to use the website in a simple, clear, and objective way.

Over-sinning is a mistake that top brands don't usually make, a characteristic that must be preserved in the digital environment. That is why investing in easy and consistent navigation is the recipe for success. Avoid excessive functions and information as much as possible, helping to highlight what really matters. With good usability, you guarantee that you will deliver a more comfortable and direct experience to consumers, maintaining the quality level of in-person stores in your new space.

Luxury brands need luxury virtual stores

When faced with the display of a high-end brand, we immediately know that the items have high added value, even if there is no price indication. This is because everything that is visible is designed to measure to awaken a specific sensation in the client. In the digital environment, the layout sometimes makes the showcase. Although it is impossible to reproduce virtually all the sensations that create an intrinsically luxurious environment, some details make all the difference.

The use of high-quality photographs is the first point to be noted. Every luxury item is seen as an investment, so the consumer must be able to observe it from different angles and perspectives that facilitate decision making. For the fashion sector, for example, it is recommended to select photos of the piece showing details and textures up close, combining them with images of the piece in use by a human model. The choice of crisp and clear images replaces, to a certain extent, the moment of touch and real observation of the piece.

In addition to images, the choice of words also has power. Imagine that, when choosing to make a purchase in a physical store, the buyer would be assisted by a seller prepared to answer all doubts and to persuade the user through subjective descriptions. When creating a virtual store, it is essential to invest in product descriptions, offering much more than technical details. The ideal description should say much more than just what the product is, also presenting information about the composition, better ways to adjust it, and especially the emotions that will be transmitted by the item.

Returning to the structure of the site, give preference to clean designs and without excessive information, always prioritizing the blanks that help to highlight the products. Also, minimize the number of interruptions such as pop-ups, banners, and chats, leaving only what is strictly necessary. It is also valid to maintain a consistent color chart and pay attention to the typography used to ensure that the very experience of purchasing a product on your website adds value to your product.

Take care of the service!

One thing is certain: a customer who chooses to invest in high-end items is certainly not concerned with price, but with experience. Purchasing luxury products means investing in exclusivity and status, making it essential to emphasize these aspects whenever possible. One of the main points that separate luxury brands from the online market is the impossibility of providing a personalized interaction with each customer, a factor that, in face-to-face stores, is one of the most important points of the sales strategy.

To reproduce the real service, a tip is to invest in several channels that enable contact with the customer, such as service via Whatsapp, responses via Facebook and Instagram, contact pages, specialized calls, SACs, and, of course, personalized chats. Chats provide the customer with an even closer experience with the brand, allowing them to ask questions with a specialized salesperson. In addition to presenting quality and response time, chats must be personalized in different ways.

The visual aspect must be harmonious with the rest of the site, not disturbing the client's navigation, but placing itself as a clear and functional tool. In addition, it is highly recommended that they are operated by professionals trained to assist in the digital world, with useful and preferably personalized information, such as knowing who the customer is, treating him by name, researching his interaction with the company, and saving this data on CRM so that they can be worked on in the future.

Providing security is the solution for good partnerships

Security, or lack thereof, is one of the factors that makes luxury brands more resistant to entering the online market. From the development to the implementation of an online store, there are several factors and tools that can make it safer for both the store owner and the end customer. In the back-end, the part that does not interact directly with the user, communicating directly with the server, it is essential to invest in anti-fraud tools. At Quatro Digital, we use ClearSale and Conductor as partners, but there are other options on the market.

In addition to the tools that prevent fraudulent transactions, there are other ways to offer greater security for e-commerce for large brands. In general, the fundamental measures to ensure the protection of high-end customers are an investment in the creation of an armored website and activation of functions such as HTTP, PCI, and SSL, factors that double the protection of information and data transfers.

It is necessary to make these safety-related actions visible at all stages during the purchase process, to increase the safety and credibility of your consumer.

The increasingly positive scenario for online shopping and the creation of personalized environments places the participation of major brands in the digital scene as an almost mandatory measure for the continued rise. With the transformation of environments and the change in the way consumers buy, it is increasingly easy to serve high-end customers with effective, qualitative, and personalized support.

Overcoming these challenges is a fundamental part of the growth process, even in the case of brands that already have a reputation.

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• Blogger: Vikram Rana
• E-mail: [email protected]
• Marketing Manager at LiftnGift
• Vikram Rana is Marketing Manager at LiftnGift and has served as the Head of Conversion Marketing at Planet Web Solution. He's an expert in inbound marketing and lead generation.
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