• E-COMMERCE TO DOMINATE

The growing comfort of both consumers and industry members with e-commerce and long-distance digital communications, initially as means of coping with the COVID-19 lockdown, will have a long-term effect.  

“Just as companies have successfully adapted to remote working as a result of the coronavirus, so, too, might consumers change their channel habits, embracing e-commerce for their shopping,” write Kapferer and Révis.

Stores will remain essential, the state, but digital engagement will become more important to the purchasing path.

• • CHAINS OF DISTRIBUTION TO BECOME SHORTER

Brands that rely too heavily on wholesale channels are more likely to lag behind during the recovery, Kapferer and Révis suggest.

“During the last recession, brands that enjoyed the real luxury of managing their own distribution could control their prices and avoid the temptation of rebates,” they note. “And they also control troves of consumer data to best engage their more-precious-than-ever local customers.”

• • SUSTAINABILITY KEY TO THE LUXURY EQUATION

A pandemic by its very nature raises existential questions, particularly when it exposes man’s inability to control the forces of nature. Thus, the demand that luxury business show itself to be sustainably responsible would seem more important than ever before.

“The brands that have developed a clear sustainability strategy will be better placed to win with consumers when the crisis subsides. The next step will be to find the right way to share these strategies with clients, as sustainability still hasn’t yet been integrated into ‘selling ceremonies.,’” Kapferer and Révis write.

• • REEVALUATE WHY CONSUMERS WANT LUXURY

After weeks of confinement and collective hardship, these social motivations like exhibiting success on social networks may appear weak and irrelevant, Kapferer and Révis suggest. 

“In a post-virus world, the more intimate values of luxury may prove to be more relevant than ever,” they write.