Luxury segment is a highly profitable, high margin segment of retail business. Luxury shoppers are spoilt for choices in offline world, and they will expect the same if you take your business online. The luxury buyers want a similar experience when they visit your online store. Here are a few things to keep in mind when starting or running your luxury online store
Customer Experience matters
They are here for the best of the breed product. Of course you cannot have a shoddy website. Your website should be clean and neat. It should be easy to navigate. The format should follow your brand style. The website should load fast. The images should load fast. The links should all be working. The layout is friendly and bold. Everything that you do at your offline store should be replicated to maximum possible extend here on the website.
Personalization matters too!
Personalization is necessary for your website. Just like as you walk into a luxury hotel or a shop, the manager of the shop often remembers you and greet you. That shows that you are exclusively recognized by the store.
In the web world, there are many ways to remember your customers. You may use cookies to remember them or provide personalized service when they login. You may use an exclusive number or personnel only available to them. You may also show up products relevant on their past purchase history or upsell them new product lines.
Visuals matter!
Would you be interested in for example. buying a luxury watch, if there are shoddy display of the watch at the store front. Of course, not. Similarly, your web presence also should be full of images where you showcase your product just like you would in the offline world. And these images can be rotating to show the product in different perspectives. For example, in one image, watch should be shown in a case. In another, there could be a model shown wearing the watch. All these items should display exclusivity that only a few people in the world can afford.
Exclusiveness
The point of luxury store is exclusivity. If the product is available on every other online store, your buyers may feel that the brand is not catering to specific clients but to everyone in the world. Your products are costly for a reason and that is they are not available beyond select locations. And if you can create something exclusive to your web customers, you further add to the exclusivity. That would drive interests and make sales happen faster.
Packaging and delivery
Exclusive web stores need to offer exceptional packaging of the product and regular updates on delivery. They need to connect with the best of the breed suppliers and make sure their services are top notch. The notifications should be creative and should make the customer excited about the product they are about to receive. You may add personal messages and letters inside the delivery box thanking them for the purchase and place to call, in case they are not satisfied with the purchase.
Post sales service experience
You don’t just want buyers to feel exclusiveness just during buying. You want them to feel special all through the sales and post sales process. Your service line should be manned for all the shop timings mentioned. There should not be a sense of hurry in understanding customer issues. Urgency should be shown in handling customer complaints. Suggestions need to be honoured and implemented. Nothing speaks more to the buyers than the fact that their words are acted up.
Leave a Reply