Top Online Luxury Apparel and Accessories Retailers: What are They Doing Right?

Abstract

<p>Little research focused on the online luxury industry. However, sales growth in the online luxury market has far outpaced the sales growth in the instore luxury market. As online luxury sales continue to grow, service expectations in digital and instore channels are also expected to grow. Our purpose was descriptive and was guided by one research question: What is the state of the art in the top performing online luxury websites in terms of international customer service features? We conducted a content analysis of such features on the top performing apparel and accessories luxury firms’ websites. Two coders visited and coded all such single-brand retailer luxury websites (<em>N</em> = 46). The sites had many customer service features that make it easy to purchase across national borders. Although there is room for improvement, we found the top performing luxury websites to be largely providing customer service information that facilitates international purchasing.</p>