the LUXURY of SELLING ONLINE Apr 1, 2000 12:00 PM
, SHERRY CHIGER
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Marketing a $30,000 diamond necklace on the Web is different from marketing
a $12.95 paperback - or is it?
You might think diamond rings are the last product anyone would buy online.
But Mary Lou Kelley, vice president of marketing for luxury goods
i.merchant Ashford.com, would tell you that you're wrong.
"Diamonds are one of the perfect items for selling online," she says. "Men
buy the engagement rings. And just like men don't like to ask for
directions, they don't like going to the jewelry store to ask about the
four Cs" - cut, clarity, color, and carat, the four factors that determine
the value of a diamond. Men would rather log on to the Web, Kelley argues,
and find the answers - along with the ideal ring - for themselves.
And that, in a nutshell, is the philosophy of marketers selling luxury
items online. But while people are apparently willing to dole out big bucks
for high-end items sight unseen - Jill Vollmer, vice president of brand
marketing for online jeweler Mondera, says one customer spent $96,000 on
two diamonds - in some way marketing such products isn't as simple as, say,
selling books or office supplies online.
"The Internet enables a unique experience," says Adam Rockmore, vice
president of strategic consulting for services provider Fry Multimedia.
"But whenyou try to take the in-store shopping experience online without
compensating for the things you lose, such as the sensory cues, you don't
truly capture the luxury experience."
And when consumers are shopping for jewelry and upscale merchandise,
Rockmore says, the experience itself is key. "Ultimately, if you're selling
high-end goods, some of your whole schtick is selling the ambience and
imagery to create the whole experience and emotional connection."
Creating the experience
The sensory cues of a luxury-goods store - the plush carpeting, the soft
lighting, the classical music in lieu of Muzak - are quite different from
those of, say, Wal-Mart. Likewise, the sensory cues of a luxury-goods
Website should differ from those of other online stores.
For starters, you need to position your site as one of quality, authority,
and customer respect. LuxuryFinder.com, which sells everything from apparel
to furniture from top designers and brands, kicks off its home page with an
animated doorman in livery beckoning you into the online store - a surefire
way of letting shoppers know that the site intends to give them the
red-carpet treatment.
In terms of establishing authority, "our Website has a virtual store tour
of each floor of our San Francisco shop," says Leigh Tricamo, director of
marketing for Gump's, a cataloger/retailer of jewelry and upscale home
furnishings owned by Hanover Direct. "The customer can see that Gump's is
certainly a high-end, reputable place to do business."
Mondera includes on its home page information on the Mouawad family,
founders of the site and jewelers for more than 100 years. (A page devoted
to the family's history notes that "the headquarters of the world's most
respected gemological institute, the GIA, is named after Robert Mouawad.")
Important as the historical information is in establishing Mondera's
qualifications and authority, the team behind the site knows it must do
more to establish its image as a purveyor of luxe goods. "We try to keep
the site clean, and we use our signature Mondera royal purple as an art
element," says Vollmer. "And we're doing a lot to improve the viewing on
the site. We're working on improving the photography and other things to
make the product seem more lifelike" - though she declines to give
specifics.
Gump's Tricamo is more forthcoming. "The whole home furnishings marketplace
in general is tougher to carry over onto the Web because of color and
texture reproduction," he notes. But Gump's is working with an outside
company to produce a book that would include true-to-life reproductions of
various colors and materials. Customers could request the book, then when
they return to the site, product descriptions would refer them to specific
pages or colors within the book so that they could view the exact shade of
the merchandise. The book would also make it easier for shoppers to match
online decor items with the furnishings in their home.
Rockmore suggests using "three-dimensional" imaging, such as that offered
by apparel marketers Lands' End and Nordstrom, to enable shoppers to see
the merchandise from all angles, and zoom technology to allow them to
examine details such as engraving. He praises the "try it on" feature that
online jeweler Miadora uses for some of its merchandise: The jewelry is
shown on a model so that the consumer can see just where a pendant might
fall below the neck or how low earrings might dangle. Ashford.com, which
sells accessories and leather goods in addition to jewelry, has a similar
feature that lets shoppers view a number of ties against several colors and
patterns of shirts.
Unfortunately, these technological niceties have a major drawback: "If you
overdo the creative," Rockmore notes, "you have slow load times."
But many merchants are compensating for such visual challenges with plenty
of editorial. Every major jewelry site, it seems, offers articles about the
4 Cs and the factors involved in selecting other gemstones. There's
lifestyle editorial too, such as "The Guy's Guide to Jewelry" at
Mondera.com, and an entire "All About Jewelry" library at Miadora, with
articles such as "Cutting-edge Style: Italy's Unusually Cut Gemstones" and
"Pearl Essence: Nature's Nacreous Gems."
Many of the marketers also make a point of romancing the product in their
descriptions. While some high-end Websites, such as department store Neiman
Marcus and leather goods cataloger/retailer Coach, stick with barebones
product descriptions, Gump's, for one, supplies longer, more fanciful copy,
such as this description of Bronze Chinese Figures, which cost $325 each:
"In the enchanting chinoiserie tradition, handcrafted bronze sculptures are
handpainted black and shocked with bright brass accents. Almost in
silhouette, our Chinese man and woman each sit on a `tasseled
cushion'....Their serious intent seems contradicted by the whimsy of the
golden bells at their sides. Very weighty 3 lbs. each."
At Ashford.com, the $125 price tag for a Countess Mara tie is justified in
that it is "hand-folded seven times in a special process that requires more
than twice the silk of ordinary ties. Truly a masterpiece of Italian
craftsmanship and style."
The unlimited editorial space, in fact, is a major advantage the Web has
over brick-and-mortar stores and print catalogs, Vollmer says. "You can
describe many details about the product and the story behind it. Plus
there's the ability to educate the consumers so that they can make the
right decision. It's actually empowering for them."
Another way to empower customers is to provide excellent search and browse
capabilities. At Mondera, shoppers can browse the jewelry by type,
material, and price. Ashford.com lets customers search ties and scarves by
product type, brand, base color, pattern, price range, and keyword. Coach
helps shoppers narrow down their search with its Gift Advisor, in which the
user can search by recipient, relationship to buyer, personality, and
price. Similarly, Coach's Find the Right Handbag recommendation engine lets
shoppers search by attitude ("fun and spirited," for instance, or
"established and classic"), how the bag might be used, and the type of bag.
Providing "concierge service"
While top-of-the-line creative may help sell the product, superior service
is needed to close the luxury-product sale. Rockmore believes that
luxury-goods sites should provide "concierge service. That could be live
chat, or instant e-mail, or the feature that Lands' End offers where a
customer service rep can lead me around the site. You have to add humanity
back to the Internet, especially with luxury goods," he adds. "Some people
still want a bond with other people."
Ashford.com, Mondera, and Miadora.com all offer live chat as well as the
ability to send queries via e-mail for a response within 24 hours, and an
800-number connecting you to a live rep - or, at Mondera, to a certified
appraiser from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). And according to
Tricamo, Gump's hopes to have jewelry and home design experts available for
live Web chat later this year.
Then, too, warranties and return policies need to be more liberal than for
lower-price merchandise. In addition to giving customers 30 days to return
jewelry, Ashford.com offers a free two-year extended warranty on all new
watches. Mondera also offers a full refund on jewelry returned within 30
days. And although the company "has an exclusive relationship with GIA,
which evaluates everything that comes in and out of the store," Vollmer
says, "we encourage buyers to take the jewelry to their local appraiser if
they so desire." Other service niceties offered by various luxury-goods
marketers include free standard shipping and free gift wrap.
Not for luxury goods only
While many of the features for optimizing the upscale online shopping
experience may seem commonsensical, surprisingly few sites offer all, or
even most, of them. The Website of jeweler Tiffany & Co., for instance,
makes only a smattering of its product line available, and it doesn't
provide very large photographs of even those items. Although Neiman Marcus
offers a zoom option for better viewing of its wares, the device doesn't
work on all of its product pages. Neither LuxuryFinder.com nor Gump's
offers special delivery of oversize home furnishings. And none of the
luxury sites viewed provide the sort of 3-D imaging available at the
Websites of midprice marketers Lands' End, Nordstrom, and Sharper Image.
That Lands' End, for one, offers more in the way of "concierge service"
than Neiman Marcus or Tiffany underscores Rockmore's argument that while
superior customer service and creative should be a given at the upscale
e-commerce sites, it shouldn't be overlooked by other i.merchants.
"Whether you're selling a high-end couch or a piece of jewelry or a handbag
or a tie or a box of chocolates, you need to determine what factors go into
the purchase decision-making. Once you've determined the core drivers for
this decision-making, then deliver on that or compensate for that,"
Rockmore says. "When the Internet enables a different or more special
experience, then it's more than just a different selling channel; it's a
whole new way of life. It's not necessarily specific to luxury brands."
