Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Case Analysis 6.2
The La Redoute horror story and its lesson for luxury e-retail
If you've ever had a real-life nightmare, the type that made you feel like you were
in a dream or that you were living right out of a horror movie, you will likely under-
stand what Caroline experienced in her quest to shop online with French retailer
La Redoute, which although not a luxury retailer has had a long-standing collabo-
ration with Christian Lacroix and is owned by PPR, the same group that owns
the Gucci Group with brands like Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Boucheron, Bottega
Veneta, Stella McCartney, Sergio Rossi and several others. La Redoute demon-
strates how companies that lack a solid e-retail strategy that is in tune with client
expectations can create nightmares in client relations, retail service and customer
experience. A important lesson in outsourcing can also be learnt here.
Caroline was drawn to Internet shopping for two practical reasons. First, as a
40-year-old senior marketing executive of a global telecommunications com-
pany she had enormous responsibilities managing both global operations and
a global team. She also had a young family with three children, a husband, two
dogs and a home to cater to. So as you guessed, she is one of those millions of
city dwellers whose biggest problem is the lack of time. To top off the complex
mix, she also suffered from chronic backache, a result of twenty years of being
hunched over in front of computers and people. This, plus the lack of time,
meant that she couldn't afford the luxury of getting the two-hour weekly mas-
sage recommended by both her doctor and friends. So she opted for a quick-fix
solution by deciding to buy an electronic massage sofa which would enable her
get a massage while helping her kids with their homework. Again, the prob-
lem of time meant that she was left with the single option of finding the suit-
able massage chair and purchasing it online. This however didn't bother her as
she was already a prolific e-shopper and could navigate the Internet world with
ease. If only she had had any idea that she was in for a horror story.
It took a few minutes and a quick search online with keywords in Google
for Caroline to find a variety of massage chair choices and e-retailers. After a
quick overview of each, she opted for La Redoute which offered a variety of
massage chairs on its website at a competitive price of €811.75. Upon making
the purchase, she was informed that she would receive her order within four-
teen days and that she would be contacted one day prior to the delivery date
to fix a precise time. While she felt a great sense of relief upon making the pur-
chase, she was a little taken aback by the long delivery time-frame of two weeks
but anyhow, at last she could obtain the treatment she needed for her back.
True to the words of La Redoute, she received a call one day prior to the proposed
delivery date but it was not to fix the time of delivery; it was to inform her that
the delivery would be made two days later and that the timing would be con-
firmed the next day. She accepted the information without protest. However, on
the new date, there was no delivery to her great surprise. She also didn't receive
any phone call or email from La Redoute informing her of the reason why her sofa
hadn't been delivered as confirmed. The next day she called the company in anger,
expecting to receive a valid reason for this level of unprofessionalism and, after
being passed around on an automated recorded message for nearly twenty min-
utes, she was finally able to speak to a sales representative, who informed her
curtly that La Redoute didn't deal directly with matters connected with logistics
and deliveries and that she would have to call the company to which La Redoute
had outsourced logistics and find out what happened to her sofa, and promptly
cut off the line. Appalled by this information, which she believed she must have
