FACEBOOK SOURS FOR LUXURY GOODS

SELLING LUXURY GOODS: SOME QUICK, EASY AND DIRECT IMMEDIATE COMMUNICATION ... STEPHEN HENSCHKE VISITS BOB AND WILMA McLEAN'S CELLAR SALES AT McLEAN'S FARM, MENGLER HILL, HIGH BAROSSA ... ALWAYS BEST TO BE THERE ... ALWAYS BEST TO MAKE A BOOKING ... AND TEN PAST TEN? I CAN'T RECALL WHETHER WE WERE EARLY OR LATE photo PHILIP WHITE

Quick Easy Direct Human Sell
Beats Web Goss Hands Down
Return To The Personal Touch
by PHILIP WHITE

One of the many Facebook Friends that hasn’t complained about me closing my account a few months back is Ferrari. Another is Morgan. Not one whimper from Aston Martin. Not a squeak from Loubo or Jimmy or Guerlain or even Harley Davidson.

This coincides with fascinating research from the New York-based Luxury Institute, whose precise white papers are always good hints at how one might sell expensive wines.

It seems socializing on the internet is not necessarily the way to do it. Last year, in its annual Wealth And Luxury Trends 2011 And Beyond paper, the Institute cast a warning. Under Man The Websites it said “As luxury retailers learn to leverage the internet for e-commerce, they are also learning that one thing affluent customers expect from their online experience, if the need arises, is the availability and opportunity for quick, easy and direct immediate communication.”

Forget being like the absentee landords and robber barons of Facebook and Google, who rarely exist. 62% of the polled affluent said they preferred to be able to call someone directly for assistance; 60% said they’d “abandon their online purchase if they cannot find quick answers to their questions on the website”. 45% expect a working phone number they can use to talk to the retailer.

The Institute then suggests an explosion of apps, and moves on to other topics.

A short twelve months later, the Trends 2012 And Beyond paper is just out. It reports the importance of a renewed emphasis on the store, having found that of a new group of polled affluent, “only 10-15 percent of a luxury brand’s customers state that they have a relationship with a sales professional and can name that person. Meanwhile, customer attrition rates in the luxury industry are at an astronomical 89-90 percent ... look for a massive emphasis on relationship-building in 2012 as luxury brand executives shift investment back into people.”

Like read, GO BACK TO YOUR SHOP. SERVE PEOPLE.

This may come as a touch obvious to some, but believe me, I scour such trends from all over, and I haven’t seen this sort of language spoken at this level through the drab glam of the cobweb in years. And that’s where everyone was spending their time.

Which brings me to Chapter 5: The End of Fascination with Social Media.

Yes, it says, luxury consumers are online, and millions of them are friends of luxury brands on Facebook, “which tries to to come up with a new way to influence purchases online every six weeks.”

Ain’t this music!

“However,” it continues, “there is no evidence that having all those millions of fans, most of whom are purely aspirational, has helped luxury brands in acquiring new customers, creating better relationships and increasing sales and profits significantly.”

Not only do the rich place little importance on a luxury product’s social media presence, surprise, surprise, but many regard the presence as a cheapening of the brand. It loses its exclusivity. Furthermore, they think that social media should be strictly social and not commercialized. And then there’s a warning that even the best apps will quickly be copied, proliferate and fail to provide true, long-term, sustainable advantage.

I’d love to see a profile of the IQs and emotion and impulse spectrums of these polled wealthy – take out the psychopaths and I’ll bet they’re just like poor little me and you.

Which is not to say that your winery blog or Facebook page will suddenly fail to keep a trickle into your till because it’s 2012, or that only poorer people will still be drawn to the brash impersonality of the screen. But is certainly saying that if you’re trying to sell something that is of true rarity and quality, it’s better to keep it rare and be there in the flesh to share its beauty with the customer.

GILL GORDON-SMITH IN HER FALL FROM GRACE WINE BAR AND WINE EDUCATION CENTRE IN THE MAIN STREET OF McLAREN VALE ... WORKS THE WEB WELL, BUT THERE'S NOTHING MORE PERSONAL AND LUXURIOUS THAN TO MAKE A BOOKING AND VISIT photo KATE ELMES

So, dear premium winemaker, while the trend of the grog giants flogging oceans of faceless cheap plonk in bladders or glass may seem to remain an insurmountable enemy to your embattled luxury product, remind yourself of the existence of yourself. They do not have a you.

But do remember. Anything you say while you’re insinuating your precious liquor into your customer, like in the flesh, will very likely be reported later that night on Facebook or elsewhere on the internet and anyone on earth can easily find out whether you were bullshitting or not.

Then it gets really bitchy.

You have a great advantage with wine, of course, if it really is good enough to be called a luxury. Apart from sex toys and food, it’s one of the only products that people actually insert into their bodies. Unlike sex toys, it doesn’t come out until you’ve actually absorbed it into your precious bodily fluids and transformed it. This opportunity for such overtly personal sensuality could never arise from the pages of a newspaper nor magazine, and it certainly doesn’t jump off the Facebook screen.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m getting off the net. Manolo’s coming round to fit me with a new pair of cha cha heels.

LUXURY GOODS: JAMES LINKE POURS SOME IMMEDIATE PERSONAL ATTENTION AT KARRA YERTA IN THE BAROSSA RANGES ... MARIE LINKE KEEPS THE KARRA YERTA BLOG AND FACEBOOK STUFF UP TO DATE AND BUZZY, BUT TO BE LUCKY ENOUGH TO TASTE IN THEIR SHED SURE BEATS DIGITAL photo MILTON WORDLEY