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Despite the global uncertainty, the luxury market is growing (by 8% in the worst case scenario in 2023) and will continue to grow between now and 2030, thanks to a strong propensity to spend (+40%) of the wealthiest consumers. Increasingly younger consumers: for the first time, Gen Z and Millennials have surpassed those of Gen X and Boomers. Regardless of age, however, more than one in two cases are not happy with the online shopping experience offered by luxury brands, which in their evaluations is even worse than that offered by “mass” brands.
The photograph emerges from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) “True-Luxury Global Consumer Insight” research, presented yesterday in Milan at the 9th Altagamma Consumer and Retail Insight, and carried out by interviewing 12,000 high spenders (39,000 euros of average spending on clothing and accessories) in 11 countries: «The propensity to spend is very high in China, in Saudi Arabia, where the luxury market will double by 2030, and in the United States, contrary to current perception», explain Filippo Bianchi, managing director and senior partner of BCG, and Guia Ricci, managing director and partner of BCG.
On the other hand, when we talk about the “physical” shopping experience, the picture changes: in fact, satisfaction is doubled in high-end shops. Single-brand stores have been the main luxury sales channel for over 10 years now. Between 2019 and 2023, however, the global network of stores of the main brands remained substantially stable (+0.5%) with 6,509 single-brand stores, as emerges from the Luxury Retail Evolution study, presented by Luca Solca, senior research analyst, Global Bernstein’s Luxury Goods: «In the last 4 years the network has moved very little – comments Solca – and the stores are confirmed to be concentrated in 25 cities of the world including Milan and Rome: an advantage for small brands that can concentrate on strategic locations and have few but better stores».