Thursday, February 11, 2010

Shopping for Luxury Online

1/ Louis Vuitton

The LV site is one of the best of the bunch, with a clean and stylish design that loaded fast with clear navigation. The use of video sparingly and in the right places definitely helps add to the glamourous feel.

Shopping for Luxury, Online

The e-shopping section is marked clearly, and within a few clicks you are in the product detail information and able to add items to your cart to buy.

Today, only half or less of the products can be purchased online. For example shoes and ready to wear collections can not be bought online, but accessories and bags can be.

Shopping for Luxury, Online

Presumably this is for customer satisfaction reasons - not wanting an expensive purchase leaving a bad impression to an incorrect size, due to the lack of a fitting process, yet it would seem a simple enough solution to have a time limited free size replacement system at their retail outlets to handle this. Perhaps it's more about protecting retail revenue and margins.

Despite this, the site is a great example of a luxury brand presenting a stylish yet user friendly means for their customers to help tempt them to make that 2am spur of the moment online purchase.

2/ Chanel

The experience at the Chanel website is often an exercise in patience, with heavy and at-times excessive use of multimedia.

Shopping for Luxury, Online

The full use of video, music and animation at times translate to long load times, which isn't very good if all you want to check out is one specific product you desire. Navigation can be frustrating, with the wrong mouse-click launching into another length wait. When it is finally loaded, it's a great experience that gets you into the mood of the brand.

And thankfully for those who are on a slower or shared connection, there is a low bandwidth website option provided as well.

Shopping for Luxury, Online

When it comes to online shopping, the site provides some limited support today, restricted to only fragrance and beauty items within the US only. All up it seems to be an opportunity not fully grasped, especially given the rest of the range which would lend well for online purchase (sunglasses, bags anyone?), and what some of their nimbler competitors are doing today.

3/ Cartier

Browsing the Cartier site is a love-hate experience.

Shopping for Luxury, Online

Without a doubt, it is the most heavy and slow of the group, yet also is probably the most graphically stunning when things are finally up and running.

However the sad end-conclusion is that it's less love and more hate - the blatant overuse of video for title animations ends up just frustrating users, many of whom would have moved on to another site. Not to mention about the use of separate pop up windows in different sections of the site, and the need to wait for full menus to load before being able to click one item in many cases, nor the un-user friendly registration.

Shopping for Luxury, Online

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is no online shopping at www.cartier.com.

Zero. None. Muchos Nothingias.

What's more, even prices aren't displayed, with a need for consumers to "make and enquiry" and leave a message to find out the price for an item. In the age of instant gratification, this doesn't seem like a very useful approach.

All up, not a great customer experience. Shame.

4/ Hermes
After struggling through Cartier, Hermes is a breath of fresh air. A big breath!

Shopping for Luxury, Online

The whimsy, lightweight light design with handrawn illustrations is a great contrast with the other four other sites which are heavy with black backgrounds. The quirky feel is instantly attractive, and while not screaming "luxury" it certainly conveys a big degree of class.

With the white background, simple menu structure, the load times of Hermes' site are low, lightening fast in comparison to the others. The clean interface makes navigation a feel-good experience.

Shopping for Luxury, Online

Thankfully, online shopping is fully supported, and fitting into the theme of the rest of the site, is a breeze. There is a good variety of goods that can be bought on the spot, from watches to bags.

Of the top 5 brands, Hermes is the most enjoyable experience in luxury shopping online today.

5/ Gucci

Never has been buying a $US 5399 jacket been so quick and easy. I was going to say painless, but at that price point, it's probably not the most appropriate description...

Shopping for Luxury, Online

Gucci's website is a clean, fast and user-friendly experience, with a careful use of flash and offering rather than forcing the use of video to site visitors.

The interface is sparse and leaves a slightly empty feeling, particularly for a brand trying to reinforce a luxurious and highly stylish image. Yet the flipside means an easy and fast navigation experience, which means more revenue when paired up with great e-commerce functions...

The site features perhaps the strongest lineup of available products that can be bought on the spot with just a few clicks. With the inclusion of helpful size guides, the site lets users buy a wide range of fashion, from jackets to bags, boots to belts. Even hats are up for grabs! Although I'm guessing hats wouldn't be as common a purchase option.

All up when it comes to online shopping on Gucci, buying is easy. Perhaps too easy.

So what's the big picture? The state of the art? Well online shopping on most of the top luxury brand sites is a reality today, and in some cases such as Hermes and Gucci, very far down the path already. There are some outliers such as Cartier, but all up they seem willing to take advantage of the opportunity.

Which is a great thing for them as well as those consumers who are willing to buy their items at any time and for many, at any price.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Japan Fashion Week

Japan Fashion Week

Japan Fashion Week

Japan Fashion Week

Japan Fashion Week

Japan Fashion Week

Japan Fashion Week

I love the layering and the rich color palette. It's earthy but not at all mother granola. I love how Japanese design can take even the most overdone nature goddess concept and make it look dope beyond dope. Major kudos for also spinning the kimono in a new and innovative way.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Illustrated Dandy: Tip Top Weekly

Tip Top Weekly - An ideal publication for the American Youth - December 10, 1898.

Illustrated Dandy: Tip Top Weekly