The luxury brands from Rolex to Rolls Royce and Louis Vuitton to Lamborghini, have been facing the challenge of how to maintain an unimagined exclusivity. Therefore, this industry has been the last one to embrace digitization. But, with the outbreak of Covid-19, the rules of this industry demands reform.
Covid-19 gave a severe blow to the luxury sale numbers globally and India is not any exception to it. Luxury market, although rapidly growing in India, is still at a very baby stage and thus, a crisis situation like this pandemic is forcing luxury brands to take all possible steps to keep the industry growing. One such step which brands have relatively ignored over the years is online luxury retail.
It is one of the most challenging task to replicate offline purchase experience in the digital space. The task of creating an unique and unparalleled shopping experience online for luxury brands is a long thrilling path that luxury brands in India must embrace in order to remain afloat during these tough times.The number of luxury shoppers driving this spree may be limited but those who will buy will tend to overspend as they get the opportunity to buy for the first time after many days. Also, millennials would be more inclined towards online shopping rather than visiting the malls and stores. The fear of getting the corona virus at crowded places will force the luxury buyers to focus on online shopping more than anytime before.
Hence the task of creating the personalized luxury shopping experience offering in stores will require cutting edge digital enhancement right from AR/VR i.e. augmented reality/virtual reality to artificial intelligence, data analytics and much more. The brands will also need to be very selective and focus on the digital communication, online PRs and the content they put out. Today, consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about sustainability and environment, focused on frugal lifestyle and avoiding discretionary expenditure.
So companies need to clearly commit towards being sustainable in their brands and long term value proposition for luxury buyers. As per the recent McKinsey Report, India is home to the second largest digital base in the world. From the current around 600 million internet users, it is projected to reach 800 million internet users by 2023. With democratization of internet, rising number of HNIs, increasing brand consciousness and growing number of millennials , the online luxury market in India will bloom. Digital is the way forward but digitalization is full of criticalities, yet the rewards are too great enough to surf this challenging path.