How Astrid & Miyu gave virtual sales a personal touch
Astrid & Miyu is Lush for jewellery: stepping into its stores is a sensory experience, with pink walls, neon signs, and bling adorning every countertop in sight. While shopping for earrings, customers could get pierced or tattooed - carving a niche experience somewhere in between the hyper-masculine ink parlours and piercing shops targeting tween girls.
Although jewellery lends itself to physical retail - many items can’t be returned for hygiene reasons - shutting up shop because of the coronavirus pandemic didn’t slow down sales. In 2020 Astrid & Miyu had its most successful year yet, increasing revenue from £8.5m to £10m and ranking ninth in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100.
In part, this was because demand for at least some of the company’s core products remained buoyant during lockdown. Unlike shoes, for example, earrings and necklaces are both visible on video calls.
Luxury is culture now. Here’s how
This forces brands to consider a unique philosophy beyond a single aesthetic, which in turn will convert more people to loyal customers, says Thomaï Serdari, a luxury marketing professor at New York University. By stocking and promoting other designers, brands can create even more powerful storylines and collections, she adds. “Luxury brands understand that it is more risky to only have one type of value proposition for their customer. By expanding their curatorial offerings, they’re ensuring that the customer considers them as a destination for any kind of need.” It’s also why today’s creative directors are less known for being couturiers, and instead as people who can generate a lot of ideas, she adds.
Dilution is a risk, says Greenwood, therefore the core creative eye and getting product mix right, is critical. However, collaborations on brand platforms are especially beneficial at a time when wholesale partnerships are decreasing and direct-to-consumer relationships are on the rise, says Barbara E Kahn, a marketing professor at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The shift is important, she explains, because “once you have that direct relationship with the end user, you become a trusted brand for them, and therefore your recommendations to other brands make sense.”
Customers over product
When Stella McCartney reopened its London flagship store in April, it handed over its space to what it calls its #StellaCommunity friends, hosting a different local business each week, featuring beauty, art, music, food, live-streamed talks with special guests and skincare treatments from Dr Barbara Sturm and Face Gym, among others. The initiative was the start of the new global rollout, with the goal of turning its stores around the world into a hub for local businesses and consumers.
Marc Jacobs’s Heaven, which opened its first store in Los Angeles recently, also stocks other brands, including Mowalola and Nodaleto — something that Marc Jacobs had done since 2010, in his Bookmarc stores in New York and Tokyo, which curates books, photography, music and pop culture tchotchkes. The Heaven store is one of 15 retail locations that the designer plans to open in the US this year.
“One trend we are seeing in luxury retail is a focus on customers rather than products. What that means in general about spending is that brands are prioritising customer loyalty; their goals are customer acquisition and retention, which is a different goal than just promoting products or innovation. It’s a different focus for their media spend,” says Wharton’s Kahn.
Astrid & Miyu supports emerging brands with third Business Accelerator Programme
Astrid & Miyu supports emerging brands with third Business Accelerator Programme Digital Edition: Astrid & Miyu supports emerging brands with third Business Accelerator Programme Jewellery brand and retailer Astrid & Miyu has announced the launch of its third small business mentorship programme, open to all new consumer-focused brands with an ecommerce element.
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