1. KERING:
LUXURY IN
THE DIGITAL
WORLDBY SHANNON LINDEE, JADE SCOTTE, DISHA
NAGI, AURÉLIE DIAS, MARION
SIMONGIOVANNI

2. TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction
Issues
Recommendations
Conclusion

3. KERING
CEO: François-Henri Pinault
Established in 1963 by François Pinault
as a timber trader
Entered the luxury retail sector in late
1990s
Recognized a need for a strategic vision
and streamlined the conglomerate to
concentrate on the luxury industry
Luxury Brands: Alexander McQueen,
Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Boucheron,
Brioini, Christopher Kane, Dodo, Girard-
Perregaux, Gucci, Jeanrichard, McQ,
Pomellato, Qeelin, Saint Laurent, Sergio
Rossi, Stella McCartney, Ulysse Nardin

4. BUSINESS MODEL
Knowledge and resource sharing between brands
• Extremely helpful for newly acquired brands
• Allowed for conglomerate to create economies of scale and
increase network of suppliers
Company’s internal talent – pool of candidates for new
project leadership
Focus on collaboration between creative teams and business
teams

5. ONLINE PRESENCE
Had experience in online sales since 1996 with Redcats and
FNAC
Online luxury sales much slower
Gucci was a pioneer in online with first e-commerce site in
US in 2002
Recognized the need to grow its online presence
Launched “Digital Academy” in 2011
• Group-wide change management program to instill a digital
culture in Kering owned brands

6. ISSUES
 The luxury conglomerate was sluggish in one key
aspect: its online presence.
 How Kering should capitalize on the benefits of a
web presence, trying not to stray away from the luxury
strategy of its brands?
 Which is the ideal approach for Kering to
successfully grow the digital presence of its luxury
brands?
 Strong online presence of luxury goods
competitors.
 Online retailers became direct competition to
traditional retailers.
 Online retailers benefit from having fewer overheads
than physical stores: Very difficult to beat on price.

7. ISSUES
 Sales declined since 2003:
 Slow expansion of some of company’s luxury brands (e-
commerce): Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga…
 Trends that caused the premium sector to overlap luxury
entrants in price: growing lack of separation between luxury
and premium goods.
 The market is differentiated between “mass luxury” and
“premium luxury’’.
 Luxury sector was dominated by a couple of brands that
were defined by Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, as “star
brands”.
 Star brands should be timeless, modern, fast-growing and
highly profitable: very hard to balance all four characteristics
at once.

8. ISSUES
 Inability to afford many luxury goods Some people of
accessible market turn to counterfeit goods to fill the void.
 How luxury brands needed to market their goods in order
to secure the highest sales while simultaneously ensuring
they did not hurt their brand image?
 Should it focus on only one of the groups or target each
group?
 Should it execute its online strategy for the different
segments differently or roll out with one strategy?

9. ISSUES
 Biggest weakness in online
shopping: not being able to
physically see the items.
 “There were a lot of affluent
people who were intimidated or
annoyed by shopping at luxury
retail stores.”
 People used online resources to
save time.
 Customers now expected retailers to have an online app.
(Website is nowadays not enough)
 How could luxury retailers apply the multi-sensory luxury experience in the
online market?
 Luxury brands could not depend on the strength of their names alone:
Necessary to recreate the luxury shopping experience online without
compromising efficiency of a few clicks.

10. ISSUES
 Benefit of the Internet to reach all regions through one channel  differences
in priorities and tastes of the different regional groups.
 Should the brand stick to advertisement and social media for some of its
brands or should it make online shopping possible for all?
 How should it take advantage of its portfolio of companies to efficiently and
effectively grow its online presence?
 Did Kering have the internal resources it needed to grow this new market
successfully?
 What would be the ideal timeline to ensure that
Kering establish an online presence in a timely
manner while avoiding disastrous mistakes that
could hurt the images of its brands?
 Should it take a different online approach for
its various brands?
 Were some of its brands too luxurious to sell
online?

11. RECOMMENDATIONS
Online shopping
• They should sub-divide the
brands and display videos as
well as images
• They offer customers trail and
payment method, for those
who want to try before
purchasing (COD)
• Offer personalization as an
option to the customers
• more of a virtual reality where
they can try products by
scanning online

12. RECOMMENDATIONS
Different mediums
• kering should take the help of
social media and use It as a
medium to reach the customers
and make them feel their
presence
• They can even come up with
online events for the brands
that are not doing well in e-
commerce
• They should use CRM to make
customers aware about their
presence

13. RECOMMENDATIONS
Competitors
• Kering has got a vast hold on
people, now it needs to
concentrate on making people
well aware about its existing
brands which are not well known
• Come with the mobile app, give all
the features which is currently
trending
• Use of more different patterns on
the website
• Less amount of history, more
about the trending collections
• Be digitally advanced and socially
active

14. RECOMMENDATIONS
Counterfeits
• They should generate a small
post on this topic on every
brand page
• make a post before payment
“I don’t use counterfeits”
which the customers can click
and accept
Sales
• give variety of options to mix
and match the brand online
• let the customers create their
own model by using various
kering brands

15. RECOMMENDATIONS
• As management of Kering planned their online strategy, they
needed to consider how the company would use the Internet
to target each of the three distinct groups.
• Creating only ONE Kering website having subparts with the
three different groups, divided by each brand present inside
the group
• Investing on Augmented reality to allow the customers to try
the products as the most real as possible
• Kering App: Easily to use, possible order directly from the
App, fast
• Perfect packaging  first contact between the client and the
product
• Impeccable after sale services
• Availability of retailers by phone or even interactive chat from
the website/App to help and advise the customer if needed