Luxury Daily, one of the the world’s leading luxury business publications, organizes the most prestigious luxury awards handed out annually. The New York-based publication – which covers strategy, tactics, execution and results for luxury marketing, and retail across all mediums and channels – has acknowledged the most outstanding consumer-focused, strategic, tactical and creative Luxury Retailer of the Year for 2016.
All candidates have been selected by the Luxury Daily editorial team and from reader nominations. A qualification for nomination was that candidates should have appeared in Luxury Daily coverage in 2016. Judging was based purely on merit. The winners were declared primarily on the basis of merit and they were all retailers possessing extraordinary retailing tactics, and open to exploring new technologies and innovations.
According to Editor-in-Chief of Luxury Daily, Mickey Alam Khan, “The outstanding characteristic of luxury retail and retailers is the willingness to adapt new retailing trends, most of them consumer driven, while rivaling many non-luxury brands in their adoption of technology as the worlds of luxury bricks and mortar and digital learn to lean on each other with increasing comfort.”
Neiman Marcus was 2015 Retailer of the Year and Selfridges was 2014’s winner. Harrods was named 2013’s Luxury Retailer of the Year, while Barneys New York and Bergdorf Goodman were honoured in 2012 and 2011 respectively.
Indiaretailing Bureau brings you a list of the winners this year, and gives you an insight into why these retailers were chosen Luxury Retailers of the Year, 2016.
12016 Luxury Retailer of the Year: Net-A-Porter and Mr. Porter
Catering to online consumers since 2000, Net-A-Porter and brother site Mr Porter are Luxury Daily’s 2016 Luxury Retailer of the Year. Both have carved a niche in luxury e-commerce, offering designer clothes, shoes, bags and designer accessories from top designer brands. They have helped in convincing brands that previously did not sell online, to give it a try and both champion unparalleled customer service, with express worldwide shipping
to more than 170 countries.
Ultimate service providers
Continuing its focus on delivery and 24/7 availability, during the summer months, Net-A-Porter and Mr Porter struck a partnership with Blade to deliver packages to the Hamptons and other hamlets on Long Island’s East End. The retailers’ same-day delivery service is offered year-round for consumers in the Greater New York area, with an extended practice to the Hamptons available in the summer months.
Other highlights include an exclusive capsule of Gucci merchandise and the debut of Prada’s ready-to-wear collections online.
Global Director of Marketing at Net-A-Porter, Marilyn Webber, was quoted by Luxury Daily as saying, “Our efforts to connect with our customer on a personal level and appeal to their everyday lives is integral for the growth of our business. We continue to offer a vast variety of product across categories with exclusive collections, brand collaborations and a ‘wear-now, buy-now’ edit that meets our customers’ needs year round.”
Campaigning Strategies
Net-A-Porter and Mr Porter beefed up their content, upping their posting frequency on both its namesake site and Mr Porter from weekly magazines to daily updates. “In 2016 Net-A-Porter has demonstrated strong growth by showcasing our unparalleled product offering, customer retention rate and service, and our unique content offering as not only an online luxury retailer but a media company,” said Ms. Webber.
21st Runner’s up-Nordstrom
For more than 100 years, Nordstrom has worked to deliver the best possible shopping experience, helping customers possess style and not just buy fashion. It has been a one online stop to shop for shoes, clothing, jewelry, dresses, makeup and more from top brands. Starting from a small Seattle shoe shop, Nordstrom bagged the first runner’s-up position as the 2016 Luxury retailer of the year.
Ultimate service providers
The company serves customers at 123 full-line stores in the US and Canada, 215 Nordstrom Rack locations, five Trunk Club clubhouses— a personalized styling service — two Jeffrey boutiques and two clearance stores. Nordstrom also serves customers online in 96 countries through Nordstrom.com.
Along with service, a focus on product curation led to additional locations for the retailer’s Space shop-in-shop concept for emerging designers and Hermès’ first accessory-centric pop-up, which will be up for almost a year.
Campaigning Strategies
Keeping the younger generation of shoppers its target, Nordstrom has come up with creative ways to get their attention. Nordstrom with due support of model Karlie Kloss organised a ‘Snapchat Shoe Challenge’ that encourages past, present and prospective students to vote for their favorite school using the social sharing application. The retailer’s individualized assistance, aligned with the holiday season, Nordstrom launched a chatbot to provide gifting suggestions.
Nordstrom’s ‘See Anew’ marketing campaign includes a kaleidoscopic short film as a centerpiece as well as print, online, out of home, social and television components.
32nd Runner’s up- Barneys New York
Luxury retailer Barneys New York is renowned for having most discerning edits from top designers around the globe. Carrying almost everything from women’s and men’s ready-to-wear, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, fragrances, and home decor.
Diversifying its product selection and embracing the fashion industry’s changing norms, the retailer invited vintage e-commerce site Resee.com for a pop-up and was one of the multi-brand stores that carried Burberry’s first see-now, buy-now collection right from the runway.
Today, Barneys New York operates flagship stores in New York City, Beverly Hills, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, San Francisco, Las Vegas and along with a preeminent luxury online store, Barneys.com, as well as 16 other full price stores and warehouse stores across the United States.
Ultimate service providers
Barneys outfitted its newly opened Chelsea store with iBeacons, using the devices combined with RichRelevance’s Relevance Cloud to deliver personalized notifications and content such as articles, videos and look books to shoppers’ mobile devices when they are within the flagship. At the time, Barneys said it was the first luxury retailer to use iBeacons in a bricks-and-mortar space.
Campaigning strategies
In 2016, second runner’s-up Barneys New York reopened downtown, marking the occasion with a charitable auction, an ad campaign celebrating the multifaceted makeup of New York and a steady stream of content.
Barneys also used its position to garner attention for causes, such as gender equality. The retailer’s holiday campaign invited consumers to use social media as a platform to enact Love, Peace and Joy.
