What Can We Learn From Gucci and Burberry with E-Commerce

We all love a story. Ever since we were being sent to sleep when we were younger, storytelling has been and still is one of the most important part of our lives. This nowadays goes beyond being sent to sleep. It is single-handedly the most important aspect of the luxury e-commerce experience we experience on a daily basis. 

Luxury brands are defined by the standards of materials used as well as their overall quality, craftsmanship, creativity, style, design, service and sense of innovation. It could be argued, the more successful the brand the richer its heritage and interesting its story. What's important, is harnessing this story and knowing just how to use it to make a highly-engaged connection with the consumer.

Telling the story is critical for the success of any brand, whether they are luxury or not. These days, whilst we spend the majority of our time glued to our laptops or phones, we still enjoy going into shops and taking in the whole visual, tangible experience. If I see a beautiful dress online for example and it's a small fortune, then I'm going to need a reason (excuse) to buy it. I may be sold on the story, I may be sold on the dress, but I also need more. I want the whole story. I want to tell my friends the story too when they ask me about it. I want to make the dress worthy of every penny I spend on it.

Two great brand examples of who do this and do it well are Gucci and Burberry. They both have areas in-store, purely dedicated to conveying their stories. Burberry goes one step further and has an entire micro-site developed to showcase this too!

Get Pampered Online

We all know that nothing beats the experience of being really made to feel special and looked after in store when we're buying into luxury. This experience of well trained staff that know the brand inside out cannot be so easily translated into the world wide web.

To counter this, brands now include features such as live chat so you can get through to someone quickly. Some even include other benefits such as complimentary shipping, returns and in-store pick up. Anything to make your life on the other side of the screen, not only a more enjoyable one but also one of ease. Gucci are leading the way. There is a prompt on every page for you to speak to a knowledgeable brand representative should you want to. 

A Marriage Made In e-commerce Heaven

It was only a mere few years ago now that luxury e-commerce was still a pipe dream, made a reality by the likes of Natalie Massenet with Net-A-Porter. Now it's critical to their success both on and offline. It seems placing emphasis on heritage is a key way of being successful in this. By paying close attention to customer service, brands will inevitably find that online consumers are driven back to the store in no time to enjoy the experience in full life colour. One simply isn't divorced from the other anymore.