Before diving into trends reshaping the luxury industry and creating the optimal luxury customer journey, this section will walk-through the shift between in-store and online luxury sales and the root cause. Luxury shoppers predominantly still prefer shopping in-store, but this could drastically change in the near future.

Like most other industries, the internet and ecommerce changed the landscape of the luxury industry. Ecommerce changed everything from the way customers shop and style themselves, to the way sales associates interact with their clients around the world. In 2018, the ecommerce luxury world will continue to reshape due to a number of significant trends.

The demographics of the typical luxury shopper are similar to the traditional persona: rich, educated, likes expensive hobbies. However, the way they shop is evolving due to the internet and ecommerce. There is a long-held belief that luxury shoppers are old and well-established, but the typical luxury shopper is now younger, richer, college educated, and digitally affluent.

There are few luxury brands and retailers that have truly grasped how to cater to today’s luxury shopper and their online shopping needs. There are four luxury companies that each have their own unique approach to creating an optimal (and successful) customer experience.

The ideal customer journey is seamless and spans across multiple channels, both offline and online. The luxury sales cycle is considerably longer than other retail industries, resulting in the need for multiple customer touchpoints and personalizing each touchpoint based on customer data like demographics, location, and store interactions. This next section will cover best practices for optimizing the luxury customer journey.

This report also contains a list of other helpful resources to help you further your understanding and strengthen your position as a luxury ecommerce expert.