The chic learn to click时尚达人也兴网购

Selling luxury goods online网上销售奢侈品

The chic learn to click时尚达人也兴网购

Luxury firms are digital laggards, but some are catching up
与数字化绝缘的奢侈品公司正在迎头追赶
Jul 22nd 2010 | berlin and paris



WHEN Oscar de la Renta, an American fashion house, launched a transactional website some years ago, it expected people to buy mostly smaller items such as belts and perfume. The firm was stunned when it received an online order last spring for an $80,000 sable coat from a new customer in New Hampshire. He couldn't get to New York, apparently. Online customers have been snapping up the firm's core product: $4,000 cocktail dresses. "We could not have been more wrong in our expectations of the internet," says Alex Bolen, the firm's chief executive. Online purchases are still a small proportion of total sales, but growing rapidly.
当几年前美国的时装公司奥斯卡-德拉伦塔开辟了网上业务之后，原本设想的是能够吸引顾客购买一些小件商品如皮带和香水。去年春季，让这家公司大吃一惊的是一位新罕布什尔州的新顾客向他们购买一件价值8万美元的黑貂皮大衣。显然那位顾客无法亲自到纽约来。网络顾客一直以来都在等待时机购以最便宜的价格购买到该公司的支柱商品：4千美元的晚礼服。公司首席执行官阿历克斯-博伦曾经表示说"我们对于网络销售的预想真是大错特错"。网购虽然只占到公司总销售的一小部分，但是增长速度很快。

Most luxury-goods firms are less open-minded. Many scorn the internet as a plaything for plebs. A product sold online, wrote Jean-Noël Kapferer, a French branding guru, in "The Luxury Strategy", published last year, ceases to be a luxury item. In early 2008, of 178 luxury firms around the world surveyed by Forrester Research, only a third sold their products on the internet. That figure has risen, but still about half of firms don't sell online at all, estimates Federico Marchetti, the founder of Yoox Group, owner of Yoox.com, a luxury-goods website.
大部分的奢侈品公司都比较保守。很多公司对网络嗤之以鼻，认为那是普通大众的消遣。法国品牌领袖让-诺埃尔-卡普费雷在他去年出版的"奢侈品战略"一书中写到"一件产品一旦置于网络，便奢华不在了"。弗雷斯特调研机构2008年初针对全球178家奢侈品公司的调查显示，只有三分之一的公司在网络上出售商品。Yoox集团的创建者、奢侈品网站Yoox.com的所有人费德里科-马切蒂估计该数字会增长，但是仍然有一半奢侈品公司不会做网络销售。

Prada, an Italian design house, had no website until 2007. It did not start selling products online until last year. Several American companies, such as Tiffany & Co, have thriving web businesses, but European firms, especially the old French houses, such as Chanel and Hermès, are still afraid of mice.
意大利设计公司普拉达直到2007年才拥有自己的网站，去年，开始在网上销售产品。蒂凡尼等几家美国公司的网络生意都进行的如火如荼，但是欧洲的公司尤其是老牌法国商店，比如香奈儿和爱马仕都惧怕网络。

Luxury executives explain that the internet is too impersonal for their products, which need the human touch. Allowing anyone to buy online can mean a loss of cachet. Luxury firms like to dazzle customers with plush stores and sleek ads, so that they think only about beauty and not at all about price. The web, by contrast, shines a clear light on price. "That's the last thing I want people to think about," wails an executive from the watch industry.
奢侈品公司主管解释说，他们的商品需要顾客们触摸和感受，网络销售太没有质感了。奢侈品在网络上对所有人开放购买会显得掉价。奢侈品公司喜欢用豪华舒适的商店和时髦阔气的的广告让顾客为之倾倒，以至于顾客唯一能感受到的是商品的美，而不是价格。相比之下，网络则将商品的价格凸现了出来。一位手表工业的主管有些哀怨"我们最不想让人们去思考的就是商品的价格。"。

It is largely the industry's own fault that the internet is associated with lower prices for its products. For years, firms discreetly disposed of end-of-season stock at deep discounts via websites such as Yoox.com. Some fashion houses make clothing exclusively for Yoox.com as a way to use up left-over fabric. Also, by shunning the internet in its early days, legitimate firms helped to create a vacuum that counterfeiters were happy to fill, says Uché Okonkwo, the author of "Luxury Online".
互联网总是被人们联想到廉价的商品，这很大程度上是奢侈品工业自己的错。多年来，这些公司通过Yoox.com之类的网站大打折扣地进行季末清仓。一些时装商店为了充分利用残留的衣服料子，还在Yoox.com网站销售独家自己的产品。而且，"网络奢侈品"一书的作家乌切-奥孔库沃说，奢侈品公司早期的刻意回避网络使得造假者有机可乘。

There is every sign, however, that buyers of full-price luxury goods crave the convenience of online shopping, so companies are being forced to adapt. In April Richemont, a Swiss luxury-goods giant, bought Net-a-Porter, a specialist fashion online retailer founded in 2000, in a deal valuing it at £350m ($535m).
但是，种种迹象表明全价购买奢侈品的顾客十分渴望网上购物的便利，因此，奢侈品公司不得不适应顾客的新需求。今年4月，瑞士奢侈品巨头历峰集团以估价3亿5千英镑（5亿3千5百万美元）买下了Net-a-Porter，这家网络公司成立于2000年，是一家专业的网络时尚零售商。

Net-a-Porter's appeal is not price, says Danny Rimer of Index Ventures, a venture-capital fund which backed the firm, but the convenience of getting items delivered to your door before they sell out. Executives are now watching to see whether Richemont will allow Net-a-Porter to sell its many other brands, including Cartier watches. Most luxury-watch firms, such as Hublot, do not sell online. This seems perverse: watches fit easily and buyers are usually collectors who know the models well. The main problem, explains Jean-Claude Biver, chief executive of Hublot, is that watch firms have long-standing agreements with independent retailers, and selling online would disrupt the system.
支持该网站的风险投资商丹尼-莱莫说，Net-a-Porter的吸引力并不是因为便宜的价格，而是在商品卖完之前把它送到顾客的手里。管理者们正在观望历峰集团是否允许Net-a-Porter销售其公司旗下的其他品牌，如卡地亚手表。大多数奢侈表公司比如宇舶表都没有网络业务。这种情况似乎不通情理：手表容易佩戴，并且购买奢侈表的人大多都是手表收藏者，他们对表十分地了解。宇舶表主管让-克劳德-比弗解释，现在主要的问题是奢侈表工业和独立的零售商有着长期合约，网络销售会扰乱原有的销售模式。

Another sign of change is a new venture by a former Richemont executive, Mark Dunhill, to revive Fabergé, a jewellery-maker (one of whose baubles is pictured above), using the internet as its chief global distribution channel. Fabergé, owned by Pallinghurst Resources, a mining firm, launched last September with a single shop in Geneva and a sophisticated, interactive website. The industry is watching the experiment closely. If a luxury brand can thrive without a vast investment in retail space, says Luca Solca of Bernstein Research, barriers to entry will fall.
历峰集团的前任主管马克-登喜路的大胆投资拯救了珠宝制造商法贝格（见上图的小件饰品），他们利用因特网作为全球主要的经销渠道。法贝格是矿业投资公司旗下的公司，去年九月在日内瓦开张了一家简单的商店，而在网络上发起了一个完善的互动网站。整个行业都密切关注着这一新的尝试。伯恩斯坦研究所分析师卢卡-索尔卡表示，如果一个奢侈品品牌能够通过网络大力发展，那么进入网络市场的阻碍就不攻自破了。

A person close to Fabergé says it has reached its nine-month target of hooking 50 new clients, each spending on average $100,000. Even Prada now says that within five years, some 40% of its revenues in America will come from the internet. Observers, however, doubt that such an aggressive target is realistic, noting that Prada currently sells only bags, wallets and other accessories online, not its main clothing and footwear collections.
据知情人士透露，法贝格已经完成了九个月吸引50位新顾客的目标，每个人的平均消费达10万美元。现在甚至连普拉达都估计，未来五年之内他们在美国的财政收入的40%要来自网络销售。但是一些观察家对这个颇具野心的目标表示怀疑，因为想在普拉达在网上销售的只有一些皮包、钱包之类的装饰品，而不是他们的主流产品服装和鞋类。

Luxury firms may at last be waking up to the internet, but they have a long way to catch up. Carmakers have been innovating online for nearly a decade, observes Ms Okonkwo. With exceptions, luxury websites tend to be showy but unoriginal, since firms often use the same web designers. Few are properly interactive: customers usually cannot view products from different angles, or try on clothes virtually.
奢侈品也许最终会意识到网上销售的重要性，但是他们需要很长一顿时间去开辟自己的网络市场。奧孔沃女士评论，汽车制造商在网络销售方面的创新已经进行了大约十年之久。而大多数的奢侈品网站都是千篇一律的豪华浮夸，因为他们往往出自相同的网页设计者。具有互动功能的网站更是少之又少：顾客无法从不同的角度观察商品，也不能虚拟试穿衣服。

The most innovative online luxury firms are typically small start-ups, such as Net-a-Porter, Yoox (which went public late last year) or Gilt Groupe, a website which runs exclusive sales for members. All these companies have built successful new business models. The industry's ageing giants have been caught with their elegant trousers down.
最具创新的网络奢侈品公司是一些刚刚起步的小公司，比如Net-a-Porter, Yoox (去年年底上市)或者是Gilt集团，它的网站仅为会员提供商品。这些公司都成功的建立了新的商业模式。奢侈品工业的资深巨头们对此措手不及。


Louis Vuitton, a maker of leather goods and clothes, is one of the few luxury brands to have prospered online. Unlike many of its peers, it offers nearly all its products on the web. The internet brings in as much money as one of its biggest bricks-and-mortar shops, says Antoine Arnault, the firm's communications director. But Louis Vuitton's parent, LVMH, was last year forced to shut down eLuxury, a website founded in 2000 which sold a wide variety of luxury brands, because it lost money by the suitcasefull. According to insiders, it failed mainly because it lacked focus: it sold expensive products alongside relatively cheap ones. It is odd that an industry that would not be seen dead in last season's colour is wedded to the last century's technology. Divorce beckons.
皮革商品和服装制造商路易-威登是少数在网络大展拳脚的奢侈品牌之一。与竞争者们不同的是，他在网络上几乎提供所有的商品。路易-威登的传讯总监安托万-阿尔诺表示网络的销售额和他们最大的实体店的销售额一样多。但是路易-威登的总部酩悦•轩尼诗－路易•威登集团去年却被迫关闭了一个2000年建立的奢侈品网店，这家商店经营许多奢侈品品牌，可是他们在网络上赔了不少钱。据内部人士透露，网店的失败主要是因为没有焦点：即卖价格不菲的商品也卖便宜货。一个对上季度流行过的颜色都不屑一顾的工业与上个世纪的技术联手的确不常见。分道扬镳是迟早的事。