The importance of ‘beyond luxury’ clients has doubled in a decade
The association that promotes luxury brands producing in Italy, Altagamma, ran its tenth consumer and retail insight event in Milan on July 2.
One of the main conclusions Altagamma drew from the event was that luxury brands are now bringing in a higher proportion of their revenues from ‘very important clients’, which the organisation defines as “beyond luxury consumers”.
It said that, to win these clients over, brands need to identify who they are and then get “the fundamentals of their products and services right” to provide these consumers with what they are looking for. According to Altagamma, this will mean “hyer-personalisation, careful management of wait-times for products, availability of high-level client advisors and a sense of community”.
It explained that ‘beyond luxury’ consumers with an annual personal spend of more than €50,000 on luxury products represent less than 1% of the total customer base of luxury brands. In terms of spending, however, they account for 21% of the total, and each spend more than 200 times the amount that the average customer hands over. “Their importance has doubled in the last 10 years,” Altagamma said.
Brands need client advisors who can form “strong bonds” with these consumers, it continued. The organisation even floated the idea that some beyond luxury consumers may end up forming a closer relationship with their client advisor than with the brand that the client advisor represents. Nevertheless, brands need to work hard to attract, train and retain these individuals.
