Luxury retail stores should enhance their brand experience and provide personalized service to all consumers, but particularly entry-level millennial luxury shoppers. Millennial customers (those born after 1980) are beginning to spend more money and shop more often at luxury retailers than baby boomers. These entry-level consumers bring a completely new set of expectations to the market.
Rev Up Digital
While boomers favor in-store shopping, millennials opt for digital access. Therefore, you must reach millennial consumers via digital communication (mobile, email, social media) to draw them in-store. If retailers want to reach the entry-level luxury consumer, they have to be able to draw them into what they know. To reach millennials, a brand must become a routine part of their conversations across different digital channels concerning product information, events, updates and special offers. Luxury retailers need to view digital networks such as mobile apps, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and more as a different path for engagement and purchases.
Become Speedier
Entry-level consumers have grown up with a sense of immediate gratification and are accustomed to the digital experience. Retailers must customize their offerings across channels in the ways millennials want, and this comes down to providing better, faster and more memorable service. Speed and efficiency are the essentials to entry-levels. They value how quickly you respond and how quickly you ship. As soon as a millennial consumer makes a purchase, they want to receive a confirmation with their receipt or tracking number in their inbox or on their phone.
Unique Service
This generation thinks differently about customer service. They want to be treated as special, unique customers, so retailers must cater to their wants and needs. Luxury retailers can’t just assume that brand loyalty is inherited, i.e., just because their parents shopped with them, millennials will follow suit. With the advent of digital media, retail competition has reached new levels and millennials want to be sold on a product and the shopping experience. In the past, if a consumer wasn’t satisfied, they would likely not purchase from that retailer ever again. In this new, faster, competitive digital age, consumers doesn’t just stop shopping at a retailer after a poor experience, they share it with their friends and the whole world via Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and more.
Luxury retail stores that wish to draw additional customers to the brand should look to entry-level luxury consumers. These shoppers can bring unprecedented business to your retail store, or someone else’s. It all depends on how they are served.
