Luxury Brand Management: A World of Privilege, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 10

Retailing

For the fashion and accessories sectors, retailing (either directly or through franchised distributors) is the number-one priority. Ladies’ ready-to-wear products are sold in a variety of stores, including:

• Freestanding stores, having direct access to a street or a shopping center.
• Flagship stores, which are the biggest, most impressive stores, located generally in the brand’s home city (Paris, Milan, or London, for example) or in other major cities such as Tokyo, New York, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
• Shops-in-shops, which are, as the name indicates, fully individualized stores within a department store. Sometimes such stores simply rent a space, but in most cases the products belong to the department store operator and sales are recorded and paid in the store’s standard cash registers.
• Corners in department stores, where branded products are sold from several counters in a space that is more or less open, but where the brand still gets some specific identification.
• Department store counters, where there is no longer a clear identification of the brand and the sales staff is employed by the department store, which is generally not the case for shops-in-shops or corners.
• Sale in multibrand individual stores or store chains.

For perfumes and cosmetics and watches in department stores, there is generally a system of stands, which are decorated by the brands and operated by the brands’ own employees.

A great deal of research has been conducted on every aspect of ...