In Store and Online: Showrooming is Becoming Fashionable in the Luxury Industry

BUILDING A CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE THAT STRADDLES THE VIRTUAL AND THE REAL REQUIRES NEW STRATEGIES IN THE SYMBOLIC ECONOMY

by Emanuela Prandelli, Dept. of Management and Technology, Bocconi
Translated by Alex Foti

Digital technologies play a key role in reshaping the relationship between firms and clients in fashion, design and luxury industries, where the push toward omnichannel strategies, geolocalized communication and strongly customized interaction is increasingly common.
 
Designing an effective and consistent user experience in a digital environment is undoubtedly one of the main challenges being addressed by many companies investing in these sectors. Finding the right strategy to boost the experiential dimension through the implementation of real customer engagement is clearly a key priority for the luxury industry. In this area, it is particularly critical to strike a fine balance between customer engagement that reduces the degrees of separation from the market and democratizes the selling relationship, and the distance that the brand must maintain with the customer in order to remain aspirational and ensure that kind of exclusivity that premium clients expect. What is certain is that in these areas more and more consumers expect impeccable levels of service, both online and offline. Indeed, it is by integrating these two dimensions that luxury firms can reap the most interesting business opportunities today.
 
Increasingly, the customer moves from one point of contact to another following paths that have variable geometry, which are not always predictable but intersect frequently. Luxury and fashion companies should follow the customer accordingly. This means the ability to build synergic relations across different channels, platforms (or social networks) and devices (PCs, smartphones, tablets, Internet of Things). The omnichannel logic is embodied primarily in the ability to mine the wealth of data generated online and offline along the customer journey, in order to make it seamless rather than intermittent.
 
Whereas today the client seeks information on the Net and then later completes the transaction offline, according to the now classical model labeled ROPO, Research Online, Purchase Offline, there are hints that she/he is now opting for an approach known as showrooming, which means entering the store to see and try the product, and then finalize the purchase in a digital environment. This occurs for various reasons, ranging from the opportunity to save money to the combination of multiple brands in a same basket, to the preference for home delivery. Nevertheless, the implications of the two types of shopping are the same. To win preference and trust, luxury companies need to know how to create inherently consistent customer experiences, in a tightly woven web of continuous referrals that makes the relational thread stronger in time, thanks to accurate profiling of user behavior and the possibility of targeted response in a reassuring digital ecosystem that supports distinctiveness in market positioning, a crucial aspect for all heavily symbolic brands.