E-commerce is great for a lot of things — snagging sales , stocking up on staples, buying stupid stuff we really do not need. But people's voracious appetite for online shopping does appear to have its limits, specifically when it comes to luxury. The expectation has long been that e-commerce would revolutionize luxury, just as it has so much of retail.
It killed many malls and bookstores; it made Walmart go digital ; it transformed shipment and logistics operations across the globe. So why wouldn't it disrupt such an expensive, lucrative space? It turns out we still like to buy the nicest, most expensive items in real life, in large part because we want a luxury experience when we spend the big bucks. We like to feel fancy when we shop fancy, and dropping stuff into a virtual cart on a random website in between meetings is far from most people's definition of fancy.
A recent survey from Morning Consult, a business intelligence company, explored how consumers look at luxury. It found that people generally have a strong preference for a brick-and-mortar experience when buying luxury items. Of those surveyed, 49% said they would consider buying luxury clothing or shoes from a brick-and-mortar store and 48% said the same of jewelry and watches.
Thirty-nine percent said they would consider buying handbags and 40% said they would consider buying cosmetics and fragrances in a store. In every category, under 20% of consumers said they would consider making those purchases online. .