Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
and the ordinary man or woman who could be anything from business mogul
to a sportsman or simply a young executive who has adopted an international
lifestyle. These clients' shopping habits for luxury products such as jewelry
or fashion and accessories is such that they are frequent buyers and spend
substantial sums, often upwards of $10,000, during each buying activity.
This figure can stretch to $millions.
The core characteristic of this clientele is not only their wealth status but
also their unique positioning in the international scene. The majority of them
are multiple home owners with several addresses in different cities and coun-
tries. They also increasingly have dual and triple nationalities with different
passports that they use according to their locations and destinations. Not sur-
prisingly, they also easily have several credit cards linked to banks and finan-
cial institutions around the world, which they alternate as they shop. As we
may imagine, this clientele is likely to shop for luxury products in different
cities, using different credit cards and passports as ID.
Let's say that there is a Cartier devotee among them who has an apartment in
Paris, another in Miami and yet another in Dubai, meaning three addresses;
and shops at Cartier in all these locations as well as other Cartier stores
around the world (Figure 7.1). If he also happens to have dual French and
American nationalities and switches between the two passports when shop-
ping, in addition to also switching between his Amex, Visa and Mastercards,
he is likely to fall within the bracket of clients with multiple profiles in the
luxury store databases depending on the type of systems being used. Cartier's
store in New York may have him listed as an American client resident locally
and may have a recording of his shopping history in the US. Cartier Paris
could have a parallel profile of him with a recording of his shopping history
in France, this time as a French client resident locally in Paris. Other Cartier
stores around the world could have parallel profiles with details that are
dependent on the address, passport and credit card that he uses when shop-
ping. Let's say that this client spends an average of $1 million on Cartier
products annually in about ten of the brand's stores around the world. If we
break down his expenditure in each store, we may find that he could be spend-
ing as little as $5,000 in one store and as much as $300,000 in another store.
As a consequence, in one store he could be classified as a VIP client while in
another store he may not make the VIP list. It could also happen that he may
not be on the VIP list of any of the stores at all, depending on the spread of
his expenditure. But, in reality, he is a real VIP client that should be treasured
and pleased at all costs. The point is that the brand doesn't know this and has
therefore overlooked him and could potentially lose him to competitors.
This scenario is common in the current luxury market. In fact, several
luxury brands have admitted that they lose an estimated 15 percent to 25 per-
cent of their VIP clients as a result of the lack of integrated key information
about international clients. And 15 percent of clients that spend $millions on
a brand is not a joke!
