Make the luxury digital customer experience your best sales associate. 

Luxury is known for its impeccable customer service and its sales associates truly guiding the customer’s experience during when he or she visits a store in person. But in a world where more people are shopping online, luxury brands must make the digital customer experience their best sales associate.

The changing role of the luxury digital customer experience.

Traditionally, the sales associate is responsible for understanding the customer’s style, making style recommendations, and upselling accessories to complete an outfit – all while delivering an unmatched sales experience.

As we all know, COVID upended the world. People stopped visiting stores in-person, and many others stores closed.

But demand for luxury goods continued. Unlike discount shoppers looking for the best deal, luxury shoppers are not price sensitive. They care more about quality and cultivating their personal style.

When stay-at-home orders forced people to stay home, luxury shoppers started looking for goods online that they otherwise would have purchased in-person. This is true for all luxury goods categories.

Even as the world re-opens, research supports that new consumer behaviors such as buying luxury goods online will continue.

As a result, luxury retailers that traditionally relied on their sales associates, now need to optimize their digital experience across all channels. For luxury retailers, their website and mobile application should be the brand’s #1 sales associate and meet the ever changing needs of customers.

Luxury buyers, moreover, are also getting younger. With luxury brands targeting Gen Z’ers on TikTok, it’s become cool to spend on high-end brands. And as digital natives, Gen Z’ers and other younger shoppers have high digital expectations, and see websites and mobile apps as crucial aspects of the brand experience.

What technologies are luxury brands using to showcase their products online?

Luxury is built upon “the brand,” as well as what that brand conveys about the individual that buys clothes and accessories from it. To make the digital experience your best sales associate, you want to make sure that your digital channels are optimized, on message, and accurately conveying the brand’s story.

In addition to making websites and mobile applications easy to use, luxury brands have ample opportunities to boost conversion rates by enhancing their product pages.

Here are some ways luxury brands are doing just that.

360-degree images. Many product pages today only show a clothing item from the front or back, which gives consumers little insight into how they actually fit their body. With 360-degree images, shoppers can better imagine themselves in the clothing item.

Model dimensions. Everyone’s body is different, and brands are recognizing that including a model’s dimensions can help customers better understand how a certain product size would fit them. This is especially important since many luxury brands are based in countries (UK, Italy, France) that use different sizing than the US and Asian Pacific countries.

Video. Some brands allow customers to schedule video styling or shopping appointments to connect with sales associates in actual stores. Offering a video of someone in your product boosts sales and leaves customers less surprised when they receive the product, which reduces returns. This can help customers make up for the “touch and feel” aspect of shopping that goes away when buying online.

Reviews. Hearing from other shoppers how a product arrived or fit – and even seeing pictures of other people wearing an item – can help ease customer concerns.

Color Swatches. By including a well designed color swatch, customers can more clearly see all of the color options for one style of shirt, shoes, or other items. This can also help brands with upselling and cross selling, since comparison widgets/features can help personalize recommendations for accessories, which are an important part of the buyer’s journey.

Expand Selection. With shoppers from all over the world and various different climates visiting your website, expanding your selection is more important than to match the in-store experience.

Higher in-stock promises. Every industry was impacted by the supply chain crisis brought on by Covid-19, including luxury. To alleviate consumer anxiety, luxury brands need to ensure that what they have online matches their inventory.

What technologies will luxury brands look to in 2023 and beyond?

Luxury brands have always been at the forefront of delivering standout customer experiences. In 2023 and beyond, luxury brands will continue finding new and innovative ways to help customers find their own style, even at the digital distance.

Digital experiences. As mobile apps continue to dominate online shopping, brands are finding new and innovative ways to merge the digital and in-person shopping experience. Today’s in-store customers expect to scan QR codes, read reviews, and pay contactlessly at the point of sale. Merging the digital and physical realm might look like visualization or product customization (initials on a handbag) or even advanced previews of what tailoring would look like before a purchase is made. Many luxury brands offer free alterations, an important feature when sizing varies so widely by country.

Social shopping. More brands will tag products to social content on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. With social shopping, users can shop products directly from social media content. 

NFTs. A relatively new phenomenon in the crypto space, NFTs are being used to provide shoppers with additional information about products. NFTs also offer an air of exclusivity, so brands could feasibly offer tokens for customers who attend special events or spend a certain amount of money. NFT holders might receive exclusive perks, such as an invitation to see a season’s latest fashion items early.

AR/VR. Augment and virtual reality technologies enable shoppers to get a better sense of a clothing item, right from the comfort of their home. As brands like Meta (formerly Facebook) double down on the Metaverse, brands will follow suit. Virtual reality tools like the Oculus are often seen as luxury items, so it would make sense for brands to find new ways to connect with their digitally savvy customers. Some luxury retailers are embracing the Metaverse by creating VR clothing or participating in VR fashion shows.

Monitoring the digital luxury customer experience with Quantum Metric.

Building a cutting edge shopping experience, especially for luxury customers who expect perfection, is no easy task.

Luxury retailers are always looking for new opportunities to empathize with their customers, which means understanding how shoppers navigate through their company’s digital products.

While more traditional analytics tools can help luxury retailers understand when conversions or revenue drop, they don’t always explain “why” something is happening.

Quantum Metric solves that problem by connecting key metrics such as conversion rates and revenue, to customer behavior. If conversion rates start to fall on a specific browser or device type, for instance, the platform can help digital teams identify the root cause of the problem with qualitative tools like session replay and heatmaps.

With Quantum Metric, luxury retailers can:

• Pinpoint rage clicks, broken buttons, and other moments of customer friction that negatively impact the customer experience
• Set up alerts to help their teams anticipate errors in real time, as well as address potential out-of-stock challenges
• Improve A/B testing for new features, branding, and product copy
• Better personalize key service integrations, such as the chatbox

The result?

Digital teams remove the guesswork of addressing shoppers’ pain points and build products that make online shopping as pleasurable as the in-person customer experience.

Interested in learning more about how luxury brands can improve the customer experience with Quantum Metric?

Request a demo today.