Enhancing luxury retail
Enhancing luxury retail

Luxury sector in India has been facing a lot of challenges and has not seen the expected growth as other sectors in India. Luxury retail space and well skilled manpower are the areas which have a void. Luxury Connect has been the first company to identify this as an opportunity within the challenge. With the growing demand of specialized staff for this sector, Luxury Connect hopes to bring out more luxury related programmes and eventually quality manpower. Abhay Gupta, CEO, Luxury Connect, explained the challenges and opportunities in this sector in an interaction with Ankur Gaurav.

Ankur Gaurav (AG): Where is the void in India’s luxury sector because of which it has not grown as it should have.

Abhay Gupta(AG): Luxury requires a special treatment. And there is no training school in India which is training students about this sector. Perspective of employment is different than what luxury requires, they need to be trained specializing in this sector. And till now there is hardly any manpower for luxury. That is the reason why luxury is not growing at the pace with which it should grow.

AG: Why luxury sector’s manpower needs special treatment before he steps into the market?

AG: He is selling a product which is special, unique and niche and very precious. Moreover, he is dealing with a customer who is elite and most of them are well travelled. He is well aware of the global quality of customer service and he knows the value of the products. Generally, in luxury the product which values 10 per cent is being priced at 100 per cent. If one is paying more 90 percent more than the true value of the product, he should be getting the best quality service. For the customers to pay this price, we need to improve the ambience, servicing approach and handling of the products.

AG: What are the challenged this niche sector is facing in India?

AG: One part of it is regulatory issues in India including import duties, which are a challenge. Second is lack of luxury retail space and third is lack of trained manpower. By luxury retail space I mean there should be more of Emporio’s in India. When Emporio opened in 2008, there was a parallel recession curbing the growth across the world. Because of that other luxury space production stopped. DLF had planned Emporio all over India. But they stopped saying nobody wants to invest in luxury in India. Then in the year 2010, luxury started picking up again. And all those malls have gone back into production. I think in two years there will be enough supply of retail space. And as number of brands using up that space becomes high. Lack of manpower will be a problem. So that’s where training and education in luxury retail is a challenge and for us it is an opportunity. We have taken the first step.

AG: Where does India stand, if compared to other parts of the world?

AG: There are five stages in luxury. Any country passes through these five stages to reach the peak. India is in a transition from stage one to stage two. This is also called beginning of show off. China has finished phase two and is entering into phase three. Japan has reached phase five and that has become a way of life. Which means for people in Japan luxury is a way of life. Where in Japan 95 per cent of the population has LV bags. In India it is one in three lakh people who own a LVMH bag. In India people have just started showing off. The average ticket size of a watch which was Rs 5,000 few years back is now Rs 50,000. Youth in India has started aspiring to buy expensive products.

AG: How are your programs helping to bring out more and more, well skilled staff for this sector?

AG: We are conducting specialised programs. We have identified customer service as one area and luxury brand management as other area. And there are no brand managers in India. If you go to Emporio , you will find all the foreigners sitting on the top. And such programs are costly. If you check the fees of such program in Milan, it will cost you 50,000 Euro. So there is need to groom the students here only. And since there will be a supply of brands coming to India in the coming years. There will be a high demand of specialised luxury professionals.

AG: Who all have you associated with in order to use the experience to groom the manpower in India?

AG: We had associated with Jean-Claude Roustant, a gentleman from France, the ex-training director for LVMH, for luxury customer experience programme. For brand management we have an association with SDA Bocconi School of Management, Italy. This costs Rs one Lakh for five days programme and the customer service programs, it is Rs 20,000 for two days and for seniors it is Rs 30,000 for three days. 

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