While ecommerce was big before 2020, the pandemic saw almost every industry that operates online grow significantly. Ecommerce in the U.S. saw a $174 billion boost from COVID-19 related changes in consumer behavior.
The added convenience that historically attracted more shoppers to ecommerce sites quickly became a necessity for most people. With limited choices, high-end spenders flocked online, leaving many luxury brands exposed.
One of the things that have kept luxury ecommerce back over the past few years was the perception that brands couldn’t create desirable online environments – similar to real-world experiences.
Once everything moved online by necessity, many luxury brands were playing catchup to deliver a D2C digital service channel online.
Luxury ecommerce as a percentage of global sales were projected to double in 2020. For brands wondering how to boost ecommerce sales for luxury items, it’s worth noting that you will face stiffer competition going ahead.
At the end of 2020, it was clear that selling luxury products online had become essential. And any brand that hadn’t adjusted its strategy would be left out in the cold. But as far back as 2015, Johann Rupert tried to rally brands (including groups like LVMH and Kering) to build a single, neutral ecommerce platform for luxury goods.
As usual, the groups that owned most of the luxury brands around the world were hesitant. This opened up the door for platforms like Farfetch to etch out large portions of the market. With more people looking to shop for everything from designer watches to supercars online, the luxury ecommerce market quickly became highly competitive.
To assist organizations that deal in high-end, luxury goods, consider the following nine tips to boost sales from your ecommerce store.
Luxury is synonymous with exclusivity, which has always been an esoteric concept. It often comes down to how a product makes a person feel more than any other factor like price or availability.
Your online branding materials should reflect this sense of aspirational motivations. It should also use all the latest avenues available to broadcast a unique message. Where magazine covers, television advertising, and the odd red carpet event are still vital to your marketing efforts, influencers are now just as important to luxury brands.
Online personalities that convey exclusivity and privilege can help increase the perceived value and desirability of your products.
Influencers are now an essential part of branding and marketing new products. If an influencer found your products organically and helped spike sales, you should reach out and look for collaboration opportunities.
By 2025, analysts expect that about half of all online luxury goods purchases will stem from millennials and Gen Zs. This emerging demographic is constantly disrupting industries and making buying decisions that vary greatly from those of previous generations.
Boosting your online sales for luxury goods starts with catering to the demographic that will remain loyal and increase spending over time. It will undoubtedly be made up mostly of millennials and Gen Z consumers. These shoppers aren’t just familiar with online shopping and ecommerce, they likely helped create the trend. And some may even have designed the popular platforms in use today.
By building your brand on the perceptions of these two similar demographics, you can boost your ecommerce sales for decades to come. Dedicating resources to closing deals with the affluent millennials and Gen Zs should be a priority.
If you manage to lock them in now, you can cultivate a long and fruitful D2C relationship that represents a growth engine for your luxury brand.
The more a person is willing to spend, the more attention you need to give them when visiting your store. Whether it’s in-person retail or online, you can’t just copy a regular store’s customer service and skimp on the journey while hoping for the best.
Dedicating resources to each visitor may not be feasible. But you should at least keep track of your regular shoppers and elevate them to the front of the queue. At the same time, you need to optimize your site and iron out known friction points, or you may start losing sales daily.
Consider how you can make your regular shoppers feel special but also identify any issues in the buying journey that are frustrating customers.
Provide customers with:
You can also use your marketing influencers to create unique, personalized content if it will help promote your brand.
The way you frame your products should create an emotional response that tugs at a consumer’s heartstrings. Everything from the product description to the person used in the imagery should resonate with your buyers.
You’ll need to conduct extensive research to identify what personas best describe the product’s essence and how you can bring that into focus. Building your ecommerce sales strategy around your product’s unique selling attributes helps you to create memorable user journeys.
You’ll need to consider how people feel at every step of your journey design and constantly refine your strategy accordingly. In the luxury ecommerce space, brands need to be digitally savvy and agile enough to adapt to evolving consumer behavior.
High-quality visuals are how you discern yourself from your competitors. Online, shoppers don’t have the privilege to try on a product. So, you can only entice new buyers by providing exceptional visuals for your items.
In the past, a luxury brand could spend money on a single product and run the ads on TV, in magazines, or buy a double-page spread in a newspaper. The same rules apply but if you’re using the same visuals as another site, you won’t stand out from the crowd.
If you want to stick with more traditional 2D product images, be sure to use original, top-quality photography. Your photos broadcast the products' exclusivity and unique selling points.
You can also consider 3D product imagery using high-quality 3D models. Showing off your products in 3D allows customers to spin them around as well as zoom in and out on any feature. 3D product visualization has also been proven to help increase add-to-cart rates by 10-50% and increase average order value by 30-50%.
Ensure you spend the time and effort to create visuals that attract, engage, and elevate your products beyond what’s available elsewhere online.
In physical settings, each item has a dedicated space that has lights and other features to frame it in the best way possible. The same rules will apply to your luxury ecommerce site.
The customer journey in luxury ecommerce needs to be convenient. But you shouldn’t just focus on a click-to-buy experience. Luxury brands have decades of history that can be used to help with your ecommerce sales strategy. People buy into the idea of products just as much as the individual items, so communicating the heritage can help increase sales.
The more an item costs, the more detail and history will matter to the person making the purchase. You should build an ecommerce experience that champions the heritage and tells detailed stories about the products you’re selling, using every digital medium available.
When possible, provide deep dives into specific products using blogs and similar content that shares an emotional journey.
While you may be building a luxury ecommerce business, you’ll still need to cover all the basics to attract visitors. Search engine optimization (SEO) remains a vital part of ecommerce. And you’ll need to work to be discoverable if you want to increase sales.
When you write content for your products, use SEO best practices (like product schema markup) and tools to make sure you rank highly on search engines. Do everything possible to rank highly using conversion rate optimization strategies that exploit the latest search algorithms.
Every element on your page can influence your search engine visibility, so keep the latest SEO rules in mind when designing your ecommerce site.
The more customizable a product, the more unique it is to the person buying online. You can use a Product Customization Platform that allows consumers to personalize any product on the fly.
A personalized, high-end product establishes brand loyalty by allowing consumers to express their individuality. Using a platform like ConfigureID allows your visitors to visually customize a product in real time. This helps you sell to these unique identities.
Check out how Louis Vuitton takes advantage of premium product personalization for their luxury handbags.
Via Louis Vuitton
Allowing your buyers to stand out from the crowd in this way will create a loyal following that results in higher conversion rates and AOV.
Someone expressing interest in a product may require a dedicated resource to close the deal. The best way to connect a prospective buyer with a dedicated agent is to allow interested parties to request a quote.
For exclusive, desirable products, prices available on request may generate more leads that result in increased sales. By letting customers request prices, you gain the additional benefit of having a direct engagement with prospective buyers, which can help increase your conversion rates.
ConfigureID is a premium product personalization platform that helps luxury brands create visually engaging and immersive online product customization experiences. For any brand that wants to boost online sales of luxury goods, product personalization and co-creation is an effective way to differentiate your offers from the competition.
You can leverage ConfigureID to increase AOV, deliver interactive content, and drive your sales revenues across all digital platforms.
To see how we can help drive your luxury ecommerce sales, request your free demo today.
