she’s often willing to spend thousands of dollars on Dior products and would like
to make an immediate purchase of this new product. However, she lives in
Mumbai, India, where there is no Dior store. In order to purchase the product, she
would need to travel to New Delhi, where the only Dior store in India is located
and hope that she would find the product in the often limited stock. The possibil-
ity of travelling to New Delhi was however remote since she had a busy work
schedule and would hardly have adequate spare time for the trip. A second alter-
native would be to purchase the product during her summer shopping vacation trip
to Europe in several months’ time but she didn’t want to wait. Another option was
to ask a friend who lives in London to purchase the product and ship it to her. This
would however entail finding the fastest means to send money to her friend and
also dealing with shipping requirements. She was already becoming irritated by
the envisaged inconveniences but however decides to give her friend in London a
call. If the process became too complicated, she might start thinking of alternative
brands with more accessible means of purchase.This scenario provides a backdrop to the changing attitudes of the current
luxury consumers towards the accessibility of luxury goods. A large propor-
tion of luxury consumers currently seek alternative luxury brands rather than
alternative means of purchasing products from a single brand. The likely
conclusion of the recounted scenario would be that the consumer would visit
the website of a luxury fashion e-retailer like yoox.com, choose an alternative
luxury brand, make the purchase online and receive the product at his or her
doorstep. The result would be satisfaction on the part of the customer;
enhancement of the relationship with the brand selected online and the possi-
bility of the dissipation of the brand attachment to Dior.
This illustration indicates that luxury consumers are losing patience with
brands that are distant. Consumers now have access to multiple brands and
products through one click of the mouse and this has made product accessi-
bility one of the key decision factors in the purchase of luxury fashion goods.
This factor gives old luxury brands the necessity to adopt e-retail and new
brands the potential of becoming global brands within a short time period.E-retail indicators
Internet penetration in several countries is growing at a fast rate. In most
developed economies, the percentage of the population with internet access
is as high as 95 per cent. In the United Kingdom, more than 11 million people
consider themselves as ‘heavy’ web users and this trend is similar in other
countries. Other indicators show that by the end of 2006, more than half
of the entire UK, German, French and Italian populations will be online,
almost a 100 per cent increase from 2000. The number of broadband connec-
tion in Europe also increased by 136 per cent between 2004 and the first quar-
ter of 2005. This is excluding the increase in the number of consumers180
luxury fashion branding