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SELLING LUXURY TO EVERYONE

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Selling Luxury to Everyone

Author: JULIE JETTE Executive Summary: Few retailing segments have been as hot in the past several years as luxury goods. Even as middle-priced stores have struggled, luxury goods and luxury brands have, in many cases, outperformed the rest of retail. How? Luxury is the new essential. Consumers know it and retailers are reaping the bounty. At a "Growth Strategies in the Luxury Goods Industry" panel on April 3 at the HBS Retail and Luxury Goods Conference, moderator Nancy F. Koehn summed it up well. Koehn, the James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration at HBS, called luxury goods "a changing space, a space with extraordinary zip and excitement…Things are kicking along vigorously." "Simultaneous with that, there's all kinds of change," Koehn said, noting "the extraordinary redefining of luxury by established middle-market and even lower-market players." For example, she said, "eight years ago, Starbucks was a luxury game on the east coast… Now, Starbucks is daily standard operating procedure-a mass business." "The tectonic plates that define luxury are shifting," she said. Panelist Rory Tahari, creative director and brand designer for Elie Tahari, Ltd.-and wife of designer Elie Tahari-said she saw a clear trend toward higher expectations from consumers in the fashion industry. "We're experiencing ourselves a tremendous amount of growth right now," she said. "The consumer really wants highly designed garments at an affordable price." Tyler Morse, president of Bliss, an upscale spa and beauty company purchased by Starwood Resorts and Hotels in 2004, said that even in a recession consumers will splurge on luxury items, particularly those that give them a little taste of luxury at a reasonable price. "It's an affordable luxury," he said of his company's beauty products. "Do you have thirty-two dollars in your pocket for a tube of moisturizer? Every day of the week." But how can luxury goods manufacturers and retailers keep the segment growing? Tahari said she and her husband have considered the idea of buying one of their retailers in an effort to get more information about how their products are selling, improve their margins, and better control how their brand appears. You go into a mall and everybody is getting into the cosmetic business. - Tyler Morse, Bliss "We'll know exactly what brands are performing well, exactly what sizes are selling," she said.