This article suggests some specific approaches that luxury brands can use to deliver a high-quality ecommerce experience without sacrificing their values and principles. Luxury brands tend to strive for:

Exclusivity and rarity
Attention to detail
Distinctive identity and style
Deep personal connections
Each section below shares some instances in our research where luxury brands accidentally or intentionally violated that principle with their digital products. Additionally, each section recommends ways to implement that principle in both digital and in-person luxury experiences.

Exclusivity and Rarity
Luxury brands maintain their status by being exclusive. Any brand that becomes perceived as too common or available risks losing its “luxury” character. Price is a factor in restricting availability, but many luxury brands remain exclusive through other strategies as well.

One strategy is increasing demand by limiting supply, as illustrated by the Hermès Birkin bag. Hermès intentionally manufactures a tiny number of these bags each year, despite extremely high demand. By refusing to meet demand, Hermès maintains the bag’s identity as a status symbol.

In addition, Hermès uses another strategy to maintain the Birkin bag’s status — the company intentionally makes it difficult to find and buy this line of bags. They are not sold online or displayed in stores. Hermès used to offer a years-long waiting list, but even that is no longer available. Besides paying tens or hundreds of thousands of US dollars to buy a resold bag from a third party, the only way to obtain a Birkin is to be deemed worthy by Hermès — only their top customers receive invitations to buy.


The Hermès site provides just a few photos and a little description of some of the bags in the Birkin line. However, it provides no guidance on how to obtain one.
The Birkin bag is an extreme example, but it showcases a core principle of luxury — to keep luxury status, these brands must make it difficult for clients to buy. (This partly explains why so many luxury brands have poor usability.)

As a result of this principle (along with others, discussed below), many luxury brands choose not to sell products online. Instead, they encourage interested customers to contact them or visit their physical stores. Given the importance of in-store visits in the luxury experience, they may not be wrong to take this approach.

Brands who do not sell online will miss out on customers who can’t or don’t want to visit in person. Perhaps some brands are willing to accept that loss as the price of staying exclusive. However, even brands who don’t want to allow online purchases still need ecommerce sites — just ones that lack a checkout process. This is because luxury shoppers often want to research products online, even when they intend to purchase them in person.

In our study, we observed several approaches to providing access to products on luxury brands’ sites. They differed in terms of how many (if any) of their products were available for purchase online, as well as how much information was provided about those products — whether or not they could be purchased online.

For example, Gucci and Hermès had many of their products available for sale on their sites, though not all. Most luxury brands kept some product lines or special rare products available only offline.

In contrast, Chanel sold a few of its products online, while Goyard sold none. Both brands did provide product-detail pages for many products that couldn’t be purchased online — however, the photos and details of those products were scant. Goyard didn’t even provide prices.


Luxury brands ranged in how they listed products. Some sold most of their products online and some sold few or none. Some provided many product details, while others provided almost none.

Like most of Chanel’s products, these loafers were not available to buy online. Instead, interested customers were encouraged to contact a Chanel representative. However, with so few product details, there wasn’t much to entice customers.
As discussed throughout this article series, limiting access to products is a core (and defining) strategy of luxury. These brands prefer to encourage customers to visit stores in person or reach out to their personal sales representatives. This explains why brands like Chanel or Goyard would not sell online. However, regardless of how much luxury brands want to sell online, they must provide better product details.

Intentionally Limited vs. Accidentally Annoying
Customers understand that luxury is inherently difficult to access — in some cases, luxury collectors deeply enjoy that thrill-of-the-hunt aspect. However, in our study, we observed many instances of interested customers left confused and annoyed. Common problems with product details included:

Missing measurements
Unexplained jargon
No suggestion of how to style or wear the product
Not enough photos of the product from important angles
For example, one participant in our study was searching for a Fendi bucket bag she had seen someone wearing. She was considering buying one but wanted more information before she took the time to go visit a nearby Fendi store. On the Fendi site, she found the product page for a similar bag. However, while the page did include five photos of the bag from different angles, none of those photos showed the product in context, so the participant couldn’t get a good sense of the bag’s size.

“It says mini here, but I don’t really know what that means. I know it has measurements, but I’m not about to break out a measuring tape and see how big mini is. But I really like the look of it, I love the design.”


One participant was annoyed that she couldn’t easily get a sense of this Mon Tresor mini-bag on Fendi’s site. The product description did include dimensions, but she didn’t want to bother with a measuring tape just to get a sense of the size.
Frustrated with Fendi’s site, she looked at the bag on Saks Fifth Avenue’s site. She was not able to find any in-context photos of the bag there either, so she tried Bergdorf Goodman’s site. Finally, after 12 minutes of searching three different sites, the participant found the in-context photo she wanted.

“Fendi’s website doesn’t usually show the bags being held by someone, versus a lot of other brands will show a person holding it, like this. This way I can get a sense of how big it is. It’s pretty small. [The picture] is really useful.”


On Bergdorf Goodman’s site, the participant finally found a helpful in-context photo of the Mon Tresor mini bag.
At that point, since she was on a luxury department store’s site that sold products from many brands, the participant decided to explore Fendi’s competitors.

“I’ll look through their suggested items to see if there’s something I’d prefer. Since I’m on Bergdorf’s site and not Fendi’s, I’ll look through different options with other brands. I might decide not to do Fendi.”


The participant decided to look at bucket bags from other brands instead of purchasing one from Fendi.
Luxury shoppers do tend to be highly knowledgeable about the brands they love. This may be one reason why companies think they can simply offer their products without adequate description, explanation, or details.

However, while luxury customers may be familiar with the brand, product lines, and even prices, none of them will know everything. For example, one study participant was familiar with some of Louis Vuitton’s branded terminology (Neverfull and Speedy) but not others (Twist and Alma). Presenting jargon without explanation is risky — it can cause frustration and lead to customers making (sometimes incorrect) guesses about what the terms might mean.


Louis Vuitton’s All Handbags listing page included a filter category named Iconic. Not only was the name of the filter unclear, but the filter options were the branded names of different product lines, with no explanations or illustrations. A big spender was familiar with two of the terms (Neverfull, Speedy) but not the rest (Twist, Alma, Noé, Dauphine, Onthego, Petite Malle.)
There’s a big difference between intentionally not providing prices and unintentionally (or sloppily) leaving out important product details and photos. If the intention is to motivate the customer to visit a store, that motivation should be excitement to see the product in person instead of frustration that critical details are missing on the brand’s site. Annoying customers this way risks losing the sale and, possibly, the customer.

Prices Matter to (Many) Luxury Customers
Even brands that can’t (or won’t) provide specific prices online should consider at least providing a range, if possible. The wealthiest of the wealthy may have unlimited budgets, but that isn’t true of all wealthy people. Even those who didn’t have budget constraints still had rough price points in mind, depending on the item and their motivation for buying.

For example, a participant who was shopping for a pair of earrings on Bulgari’s site was annoyed to discover that she had to hover over each item on the listing page to see its price.

“I don’t see prices on here… I just see items. That’s an inconvenience, I want to know at least what the price range is. Oh, I guess if I click on [hover over] them, they show it. […]

Everyone has their price point. I want to spend $15,000, so if this is $41,000, I don’t want to even open it up and look at it. I always have my price range and what I’m willing to spend on something.”


A shopper on Bulgari’s Jewelry listing page was annoyed to have to hover on items to see their prices but did appreciate that the prices were at least available — unlike on many other luxury sites.
Luxury in Alternate Realities: Augmented and Virtual
While most luxury brands seem to struggle with providing basic product details, a few are experimenting with cutting-edge trends like the metaverse and augmented reality.

For example, Gucci (unlike many other brands) has strongly embraced digital products and online sales. Gucci’s iOS app has an AR try-on feature for accessories and makeup.


As I “try on” some AR Gucci shoes, my English bulldog Cleo looks confused and annoyed.
As inherently fashionable companies, it may be tempting for luxury brands to jump into emerging trends. However, new technologies like AR are difficult to get right and make useful. We recommend that luxury brands (especially those still struggling with their digital strategy) first focus on the basics before jumping into advanced design.



Key takeaways:

Decide whether (and how much) to cater to online sales, then ensure that the content on your site reflects that choice.
If driving customers to in-person purchases is a priority, provide online product information that sparks interest and excitement, rather than causing frustration and leaving important unanswered questions.
Display plenty of product photos, including the interior of items and photos of products being worn or used.
At the very least, provide critical product details such as material, size, and heel height.
Consider providing at least a price range when specific prices can’t be shown. Remember that all but the wealthiest of customers will have at least a rough price point in mind.
Prioritize perfecting your basic site or app first, before jumping onto new trends like augmented reality or the metaverse.
Attention to Detail
In their product design as well as their in-store service, luxury brands work hard to consider every detail of their customers’ experience. Unfortunately, in our study, we observed many instances when that attention to detail did not carry over into luxury digital experiences. We saw typos, bugs, and just plain lazy design.

For example, two different participants were frustrated to find broken store locators on the Tom Ford and Bulgari sites. (This is particularly egregious for luxury brands — if you want to encourage people to shop in store, you’d better make it very easy to find those stores!)


After a disappointing online shopping experience, a customer decided to find a local Tom Ford store to visit in person. Unfortunately, the site’s store locator was broken, which made her give up trying to shop there.
Such sloppy mistakes chipped away at participants’ perception of those brands — a disastrous outcome for luxury, where brand reputation is everything.

For example, one participant was shopping for a Cartier bracelet from the Love collection on Cartier’s site. While looking at these expensive designer bracelets, she was interrupted by a poorly designed nonmodal overlay asking for feedback about the site. She was furious.

“I never like these things. I’ve been on the site for three seconds. It feels tacky. You’re going to interrupt me, asking me to a fill out a survey, while I’m buying a $4,000 bracelet!? It makes me think less of Cartier.”


A customer on Cartier’s site was annoyed when a feedback-request popup interrupted her while she was shopping.
In any ecommerce context, these kinds of mistakes cheapen the brand and annoy customers. Avoiding them is critical for luxury, where a spotless brand perception is necessary to justify astronomical prices.



Key takeaways:

Invest in professional copyediting and quality assurance.
When products are sold internationally (as is often the case for luxury goods), work with a professional translator to avoid poor choice of words and typos.
At all costs, avoid disrupting and annoying customers.
Remember that every pixel contributes to the brand identity.
Distinctive Identity and Style
Most luxury brands view their products as works of art, not mere consumable goods. Their loyal customers perceive them in this light as well, which adds to the entertainment value of luxury shopping. As a result, many luxury brands prioritize the visual design of their sites and apps above all other considerations.

This isn’t necessarily a problem. Luxury products are highly visual, and the brands’ digital products should reflect that. Visual design is an excellent way to reinforce brand values and communicate style. However, luxury brands often make the mistake of sacrificing interaction and content design in pursuit of visual style, resulting in confused and frustrated customers.

Prioritize Interaction and Visual Design Where It Counts
Certain elements of a site or app have important jobs to do (for example, global-navigation elements, breadcrumb trails, product descriptions, and listing-page filters). Ensure that visual design doesn’t impede or prevent those elements from serving their functional purpose.

For example, Supreme is a streetwear company notorious for the difficulty of finding and acquiring its products, which has led to a massive resale market. Supreme’s website used an utterly outrageous navigation scheme for its Shop section: shoppers were shown a chaotic horizontally scrolling element which displayed different patterns. When one of these patterns was clicked, a minimalist product page appeared. With some difficulty, customers could eventually find listing pages, but these weren’t very helpful either — most of the products were sold out, and that information was only shown on hover.

Shoppers on Supreme's website had to choose from a selection of patterns and colors, with no indication of what type of product they would see. The site's brutalist design and serendipitous approach to navigation felt true to the brand's identity, but didn't create a pleasant shopping experience. (In most browsers, hover over the video to display the controls if they're not already visible.)
While this design did reflect the brand identity of Supreme very well, it completely failed as navigation, making the site more of a marketing stunt than an actual ecommerce site.

On Tom Ford’s site, one participant wanted to learn about the company’s return policy. Unfortunately, the entire site used light gray all-caps text. While that choice was consistent with the brand’s bold all-caps logo, the choice made their content extremely challenging to scan.


One participant struggled to quickly scan Tom Ford’s return-policy information, which was presented in all-caps text.
In contrast, Rolex did a much better job of adhering to its visual branding while keeping its content easy to scan and understand. Multiple participants in our study reacted positively to its minimalist visual design and large, clear photography, but none of them struggled to read its content.


Rolex successfully balanced visual design and readability.
There are areas of luxury sites and apps (such as summaries of seasonal runway shows) that don’t have specific jobs to do — they are purely ornamental and entertaining. These are perfect places to experiment and let visual design shine without frustrating customers.

For example, Chanel created long pages for its haute couture shows. While these pages had a bit of content and interaction, the focus was (as it should be) on visual design. Photos, videos, textures, colors, and artwork created a virtual mood board for that season at Chanel.

Chanel's depiction of its Spring-Summer Haute Couture Show used creative multimedia elements to convey the season's aesthetic. This page's purpose is simply to highlight the brand and its artistic style — making it an excellent place to prioritize visual design. (In most browsers, hover over the video to display the controls if they're not already visible.)
Tell the Brand’s Story
While visual design is critical for communicating the identity of a luxury brand, sharing the company’s history, leadership, and values is also important. Luxury shoppers often love the brand more than the products, and they’ll sometimes spend considerable time learning about the company history before purchasing its products.


One customer enjoyed reading about the creative director at Chloé, Gabriela Hearst, on its site.
If your company has social or environmental programs, let customers know. Even in standard ecommerce contexts, shoppers appreciate brands that share their values. In luxury, participation in these programs may be even more important. Some of participants indicated that they sometimes felt guilty when buying or wearing luxury goods — for various reasons, but mostly because they knew so many other people couldn’t afford them. If buying a luxury product contributes to a good cause, let your customers know.

It’s a good idea to include interesting company-identity information throughout the site, not just in an About Us section. Gucci did a particularly good job including such content throughout its site. For example, one paragraph explained some of the history and rationale behind its line of Bamboo bags — an excellent way of slowly fostering an emotional connection to the brand.


Gucci included bits of history and design rationale throughout its site.
This approach highlights a key benefit of the digital channel for luxury — It provides a unique opportunity to control the narrative and build an emotional connection, which is the way to win a life-long luxury customer.



Key takeaways:

Pay close attention to visual design but avoid sacrificing interaction and content design in the process — particularly in those areas of the site or app where customers will be trying to achieve specific tasks (like finding a product category or return-policy information.)
Use marketing and entertainment areas of the site to experiment and prioritize visual design (for example, summaries of recent runway shows).
Don’t forget about loading performance — some luxury sites in our study loaded extremely slowly, which annoyed shoppers.
Communicate your brand history and values in an About Us page, as well as throughout the site or app.
Deep Personal Connections
Luxury brands and customers both value the personal connections they form while shopping. The brands know that their salespeople are essential to creating enjoyable, emotional shopping experiences that result in lifetime customers.

Dedicated Sales Representatives
Several participants in our study (especially those who fell into the big-spender user group) reported having personal sales representatives with their favorite brands. They kept up with those salespeople, sometimes over the span of years.

One big spender told us she had a close relationship with a Chanel representative, who helped her find and buy rare special-edition handbags to add to her collection. Another told us about a very positive experience she and her husband had with a David Yurman salesperson, which kept them going back to the same person year after year.

“For the first piece of nice jewelry [my husband and I] bought together, we went to the David Yurman store. They were just so, so nice. They let us on try on almost every single item in the store, because I was very indecisive. I didn’t know what I wanted. They were super patient and not pushy at all. They really gave us all of the different options. […]

They tend to retain their staff for a long time. The same person who helped us buy that first bracelet still works there. She’ll send us emails and invite us to special events they’re hosting. Whenever we want to buy something new, we set up an appointment with her and go see her. It’s been the same person throughout, which has been so nice. She knows what we’ve purchased in the past, and it’s just nice to have that consistency. Even though I’m sure we’re just two of many clients for her, it’s still nice to us. It makes it feel like a more unique experience.”

Luxury brands know that these relationships that their salespeople build are key to their success. As a result, the brands sometimes fear that digital products may replace those unique, human connections, degrading the critical emotional component of luxury. However, we recommend that luxury brands view digital products as a way to supplement and support those connections, not replace them.

Most of the luxury shoppers we spoke to who had long-term relationships with sales representatives reported primarily communicating with them through SMS text and email. While those channels should stay, why not provide more options to communicate with new and existing representatives?

For example, Gucci developed what it calls a “digital showroom.” This service is essentially a personal, one-on-one livestream selling session. A customer browsing Gucci’s site can initiate a video chat with a sales representative in a Gucci showroom. The customer and salesperson can both hear each other, but only the salesperson appears on video. The salesperson stands in front of a velvet-covered table, surrounded by Gucci merchandise, all of which can be shown to the customer.


The Gucci Digital Showroom attempts to replicate the in-store experience digitally.
Just as in stores, the digital salesperson patiently answers all customer questions. The salesperson is assisted by a live cameraperson, who can zoom in and display different angles as the salesperson points out key details of the products.


A live cameraperson zooms in on details as the salesperson points them out and describes them.
At the end of the session, the salesperson asks for the customer’s contact information — hoping to begin a long-term client relationship. After the session, the salesperson follows up via text or email.


After the Digital Showroom session, the Gucci salesperson follows up with the customer via SMS text message.
The Gucci Digital Showroom is an excellent example of how luxury companies can experiment with using digital channels to enhance and expand customer–salesperson connections, instead of replacing them.

Existing Customer Services
In luxury, the first purchase is not the end of the customer’s relationship with the company, but the beginning. With many luxury brands, buying a product is like buying membership to an exclusive club. Many provide special services (like repairs and cleaning services) or privileges (like invitations to exclusive events and parties) to their customers.

For example, the David Yurman customer mentioned earlier in this article told us:

“I like that [David Yurman] takes really good care of their customers. 20 years from now, if I have an issue with a piece, I can go in and they’ll fix it for me. And whenever I’m nearby, I’ll sometimes bring my jewelry into the store, and they’ll clean it for me.”

In our research, we saw very few luxury brands integrating these services and perks into their digital products. One of the exceptions was Louis Vuitton, which provided a streamlined online repair process, complete with a video chat with a repair-services expert.


Louis Vuitton provided a detailed description of its online-repair process, which provided choices of different channels for communicating with repair experts.
Beyond the basics of ecommerce accounts (saved payment methods, order history, etc.), luxury brands (especially large, established ones) should look for opportunities to integrate their unique benefits, such as:

Receiving advice and tips for caring for the specific products that the customer owns
Accessing the customer’s dedicated sales representative’s contact information
Booking an in-person appointment with their dedicated sales representative
Initiating and tracking repair or cleaning services
Receiving notifications about upcoming invite-only events
Product and Styling Recommendations
Two other huge benefits provided by sales representatives are product recommendations and styling advice — two elements that were missing from most luxury brand sites.

One participant told us about how a Fendi sales representative encouraged her to try an item she hadn’t considered and which she ended up loving and buying.

“I had gone into the store because I’d seen a Fendi shirt and been looking at it for a while. Finally, I decided I wanted it. But when I went in, they told me they had a dress version of the same shirt. They said, ‘We think it would look really nice on you, why don’t you try it on?’ I definitely was not looking to buy the dress, but I tried it on I loved it. It was even better than the shirt! So, I ended up buying both the shirt and the dress.”

These product recommendations help customers find more products they’ll love, while helping the luxury brand subtly upsell and encouraging customers to buy more, without using high-pressure sales tactics.

While the best product recommendations will still come from sales representatives, digital products can assist with this role as well. Unfortunately, many of the luxury digital products we tested had poor product recommendations.

For example, one shopper was disappointed that some of the product page recommendations on Tiffany’s website didn’t match the style of the products she wanted.

“Some of them are similar, but some of them are very different from what I’m look at. They’re much bigger and bolder, instead of the classic band I clicked on.”


A shopper pointed out that the chunky, bold rings that appeared in Tiffany’s You May Also Like section didn’t match the style of the simple ring she was considering.
In addition to improving the quality of product recommendations, many luxury brands could also offer more and better styling suggestions. One participant really appreciated how Hermès offered multiple ideas for styling its scarves (including a diagram showing how to tie a head scarf) and she pointed out that many other luxury brands failed to provide similar information.

“I like how Hermès shows you how you can tie it. It lets me think about whether or not I’d use it in this way. Other luxury websites don’t show you this, which might deter me from buying the item because you don’t know how to style it. I feel like Hermès is the only website I’ve seen that does this. They’re doing a great job showing the different ways you can style this, and that isn’t always the case on most luxury websites.”


A participant appreciated how the Hermès site provided styling ideas and instructions.


Key takeaways:

Explore ways to use digital products to enhance customer-salesperson relationships, not replace them.
Beyond text and email, consider adding more channels (text, video chat) to give customers more options for how to connect.
Use online accounts to give customers quick access to perks like special events or product repairs.
Provide high-quality product recommendations and styling suggestions.
Conclusion
Luxury brands should view their digital products as tools to strengthen their values, not undermine them. Some brands have already successfully managed to use their digital strategy to enhance and support their sales process.

While this article contained many recommendations, we suggest that the following four takeaways may be most critical for luxury brands looking to improve their approach.

If driving customers to in-person purchases is a priority, provide online product information that sparks interest and excitement, rather than causing frustration and leaving important unanswered questions.
At all costs, avoid disrupting and annoying customers.
Pay close attention to visual design but avoid sacrificing interaction and content design in the process — particularly in those areas of the site or app where customers will be trying to achieve specific tasks (like finding a product category or return-policy information.)
Explore ways to use digital products to enhance customer-salesperson relationships, not replace them.