Operating out of a dedicated set in a Florence service centre, Gucci
Live aims to recreate the personal experience of in-store shopping.
Gucci
client advisor Valentina, dressed in a black suit, bow tie and red
gloves, pulls down a GG Marmont bag from orange shelving lined with
in-season accessories and deftly unclips the clasp, shows off the
interior and swivels the $2,290 leather bag onto her shoulder. Only she
isn’t in a store, nor is the potential client.
The
luxury megabrand, in a bid to recreate its crucial in-store experience,
has launched Gucci Live, a video service that lets staff communicate
with shoppers on their mobiles or laptops. Valentina is working from the
2,300-square-metre client services hub, Gucci 9 in Florence, which has
developed a faux luxury store with cameras and TV-style lighting for the
new “remote clienteling”. Gucci says it’s the first of its kind in
luxury.
Like most of its luxury counterparts, Gucci
is navigating how to keep in touch with its clients, who are still
largely unable to visit stores but require the personal service
associated with luxury. With e-commerce
far from replacing in-store sales and digital-savvy Chinese millennials
the core of luxury growth (per Bain), Gucci is betting personalised
video consultations will spur sales.
“The
mission of our Gucci 9 global service centre is to provide our
customers around the world with a direct connection to the Gucci
community that is a seamless, always accessible, personalised
experience,” Marco Bizzarri, Gucci president and CEO, said in a
statement when Gucci 9 opened. “The service is delivered according to
the values that define and differentiate our brand today: a human touch
powered by technology.”
Gucci
developed the service with an undisclosed technology partner this
spring, and after testing in Europe with a smaller number of employees,
it had “immediate adoption”, according to a spokesperson, who declined
to give sales figures or other metrics. The service is now being
extended to the entire Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions and
the brand is dedicating more online client advisors to this feature.
Currently,
only a handful of online advisors are fully dedicated to this, but more
are being assigned given early “positive feedback”. (The brand has six
Gucci 9 centres in New York, Tokyo, Singapore, Sydney, Shanghai and
Florence, with 400 staff in total.) The company may expand the feature
to in-store associates.
“More
and more retailers are looking to increase customer value and enhance
brand relevance by bringing the personal features of the in-store
shopping experience directly into the customer’s home,” says Scott
Clarke, VP, consumer products industry lead at digital consultancy
Publicis Sapient. He says that research has shown that despite the
convenience of e-commerce, consumers still value the human touch at
critical points along the shopping journey.
While
Gucci is positioning this as the first such experience from a pure
luxury player, it is not without precedent. Customer support platform
Hero, for example, lets in-store shop assistants chat with online
customers. Before the shutdown, it added two-way video, and Oscar de la Renta, Panerai and Temperley London had added the service. Paris department store Galeries Lafayette
Champs-Élysées, intimates brand Cuup and beauty retailer Credo have
also previously experimented with using videos between in-store
employees and online shoppers. This is unlike live-stream shopping, which is broadcast to multiple anonymous viewers at once.
Personal
shopping service Threads Styling, which lets luxury customers discover
through Instagram and buy from personal shoppers through iMessage and
WhatsApp, relaunched video consults this year. Founder Sophie Hill says
that Threads shoppers are speaking to their clients via video about
styling, managing wardrobes and recommending items to purchase. Since
lockdown, Threads clients are having more and longer conversations with
their shopper, both via text and video, she says.
The
rise of in-home or remote video consultation services represents
significant industry macro-trends: the convergence of physical and
digital experiences, data-driven personalisation and the rise of the
service economy, Clarke says. “As we accelerate into the future, expect
to see a continuing shift from the point of sale to the point of
experience.”
Unique
to Gucci’s approach is its dedicated set that operates independently of
the store, combined with the ability for online shoppers to have
built-in access to personal video calls. It is designed to feel quite
similar to an in-person visit: a one-to-one interaction with a real
person showing physical products (the customer can be heard but not
seen). If a customer wants to make a purchase, they can check out online
or on WhatsApp with their host. Clients browsing Gucci.com can start a
video call, and it is planning private appointments.
The
brand doesn’t think it can fully replicate the emotional and sensorial
experience of a store, rather, it is experimenting with additional
technologies to enhance remote clienteling.
Going
forward, the humanisation of online experiences might include augmented
and virtual reality, computer vision to recognise emotions and faces,
virtual assistants and live chat. The best brands will leverage
technology to augment human skills and decrease friction, uncertainty
and anxiety, Clarke says, adding that sales associates will be key to
“helping transform a brand from mediocre to remarkable and intensely
relevant”.
Correction:
The piece has been updated to reflect that Gucci president and CEO
Marco Bizzarri was referring to Gucci 9, the centre, in 2018, rather
than Gucci Live, the new service, this year.
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source: By Maghan McDowell www.voguebusiness.com
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