Press Release

Future of Luxury Retailing Topic of New Issue of
Luxury Business: The Luxury Marketer’s Report

March 29, 2006 — This January I had the pleasure of moderating a panel on luxury at the National Retail Federation Convention & Expo 2006. Called “What’s Next — Prospects for the Future of Luxury Retailing,” I presented the year-end results from Unity Marketing’s quarterly Luxury Tracking Study and had a chance to ask some questions of an expert panel of luxury marketers. Joining me on the podium January 15 were:

• Kimberly Grabel, vice president of marketing, Saks Fifth Avenue — “When everything is luxury, it tells us luxury has lost its meaning. They’re looking for what we call a high performance experience.”
• Kimberley Grayson, senior vice president marketing, Aerosoles — “We’re not high end luxury. We’re not status symbol luxury. But we are luxurious in what we provide the customer… Our luxury comes in the form of shoes that look great and feel great.”
• Ed McQuigg, group vice president marketing, Richemont — “We are European luxury goods companies that specialize in hard goods and we are a status-driven company. We tend to make products that are a statement. For our high end customers who buy a six or seven figure piece of jewelry, that’s a statement.”

The questions we addressed included:

• What the end of conspicuous consumption means for the future of the luxury market?
• How do luxury retailers respond to luxury for the masses and the classes?
• What happens when the bottom of the market moves up?
• What is the impact of the rise of the internet on luxury retailing?
• How should luxury retailers respond to the two generations of affluence: GenXers and Boomers?
• Globalization and the international luxury market — How does the luxury market differ across cultures?

We filled the auditorium that cold Sunday morning and everyone who attended found the session both informative and provocative. It was because the insights presented at this session were so valuable that I wanted to share them with you. So this double issue of the newsletter is devoted to highlights from that informative session.

To learn more from the session, order the latest issue of Luxury Business: The Luxury Marketer’s Report, along with the next six issues.

Learn How to Create the Ultimate Consumer Shopping Experience

Meanwhile, I have just completed my third book, entitled Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience, to be published by Dearborn Trade Publishing Fall 2006. This book continues my exploration of the luxury market, but with a slightly different twist: affluent people who love to shop. It combines in-depth research among affluent shoppers, along with interviews of retailers who are on the cutting edge of the experiential retail trend with stores that offer an extraordinary shopping experience — what I call, ‘shops that pop.’

In the new book I have taken the research and turned it into actionable strategies for retailers, both large and small, to create an ultimate shopping experience in their store. I hope you will all read it, love it and recommend it to all your colleagues as a ‘must read’ for anyone involved in retailing or consumer marketing.

If you can’t wait for Shopping’s publication, I am incorporating more of the shopping insights into my new speeches. So if you’d like to get an early preview of the book in the form of a speech for your senior executive team, just give us a call at 717-336-1600.

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