How can luxury brands use the phygitalization to improve their customer experience? The case of virtual retail stores.

Details

Supervisors

Masset, Julie

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

This thesis investigates how traditional luxury brands can create a bridge between the physical and digital world to offer a unique experience to their customers. Indeed, luxury customers expect to have a memorable experience when being in contact with a luxury brand. The goal is to find a phygital opportunity for the luxury brands to offer a personalized and immersive experience. Thanks to the literature review the new trend of virtual retail stores has been identified and will be investigated further in the second and third part of this thesis, during the collection of data and analysis. Virtual retail stores are very interesting because they are an opportunity to reach younger audiences and there are currently only few data available on the subject. Furthermore, the objectives of this research paper are, firstly, to understand better what virtual stores offer as opportunities to traditional luxury brands and how the experience could be improved by adding features to the virtual store. Secondly, to understand how this new innovative experience is perceived by the Belgian luxury customers. To answer these questions qualitative research has been conducted with thirteen traditional luxury customers.