High Tech High Touch:
The Gen Z and the In-Store Experience
The digital world today has made everything easy, from traveling to shopping to entertainment among other sectors. The most affected sector by the digital world is the business sector, especially the luxury brands. Luxury brands are those considered expensive and are of great value. The luxury market benefits greatly from the digital era as people in this era are not afraid to add expensive name brands to their wish list, thus get to promote these luxury brands. Generation Z has been highlighted as one of the greatest age group of people that contribute highly to these brands. This is the generation born into the post-digital era; thus, they depend on technology being the center of their lives and not an accessory. The number of the Gen Z generation is dominant, especially in this century; thus, studies claim that this will cause a major shift in retailing, which is already being witnessed in business today. The paper will focus on the Gen Z generation and how they impact the in-store experience.
As mentioned above, the Gen Z age group of people are the most consumers and biggest customers of luxury brands. To mention a few, some of these brands include Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Dior, Prada, and Balenciaga, among others. The highest brand with the greatest digital presence and the money generated by 2019 was Louis Vuitton. It is a French fashion house and luxury retail company founded in the 18th century. Some of their most known products include luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, watches, jewelry, books, accessories, and shoes, among others. Louis Vuitton is one of the world’s leading international fashion houses, and one that has embraced the technology to the fullest. This embracement has greatly impacted the brand as it has placed the brand in the position it is today. The brand sells its products through standalone boutiques, lease departments in high-end department stores, and through the e-commerce section of its website. The brand has also recently turned to a Facebook bot to chat with customers, an embracement of technology. The bot is meant to help with the customers and to advertise their products to earn more customers from the digital platform.
The Gen Z personnel, as mentioned above, are addicted to technology or rather live in it. Therefore, they mostly use social media platforms; Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat, among other platforms to do a lot of things. One major thing the Gen Z are good at is shopping and mostly carry out this activity in-store retailers, thus the luxury brands that have embraced technology benefit greatly from this. There are some major characteristics of the Gen Z shoppers that make them of great impact to the in-store experience. First and foremost, they have high expectations for these luxury brands than any other generation. The Gen Z wants a store that delivers; otherwise they walk. They want a store that embraces technology the way they do, make products accessible and easy to test, yet they still desire human interaction. The POS (Point Of Sale) is the area of a store where customers can pay for their purchases. Louis Vuitton has made these easy by improving their POS infrastructure where the scanners in the store monitor what is in one’s basket and charges then for it as they exit the store.
Secondly, Gen Z is of less patience, as if their expectations are not met, they move on to the next brand or store that does. They rarely give second chances, and when they have a poor experience, they usually share it on social media. Since technology is part of them, they tend to share a lot, if not all, on these social media platforms, thus makes them great influencers in the digital era. Therefore, they are most likely to ruin a company and its brand if they receive poor services or do not get fully satisfied with a product as they expected. To avoid this, Louis Vuitton has embraced technology to satisfy these kinds of people by ensuring that their products are of great quality and services provided are of great satisfaction to the consumers. The brand has also gone a step forward in advertising its products by using celebrities to advertise their products. Since Gen Z tends to relate more to celebrities and their lives, they are at a high chance of purchasing the product when they see a person they treasure ‘rock’ in the brand’s attires. This move has been of significant impact to Louis Vuitton in general, thus making it an inventory step in business and marketing. To top it all on their impatience nature, the checkout process has also been advanced by technology to get rid of the long lines in retail shops. The brand has done so by introducing an operating system in smartphones, which has a payment option for the customers.
Thirdly, Gen Z is not as price-conscious as the other generations, thus making them spendthrifts. They tend to be more about the experience, and they are willing to pay for it. As other generations are more concerned about the deal and cost of the product, Gen Z does not care, thus makes them account for over 40% of global consumers as of today. A luxury brand like Louis Vuitton has used this trait to their advantage by introducing new products on the market after a short period. This is one major reason why the products of the brand have remained to be the most expensive compared to all the other luxury brands. Louis Vuitton tends to suspend production of a product once it hits its sales target in the market, making their manufacturing cost to be so high, thus the expensive products. The brand also advertises its products through actors and actresses in Netflix shows, this becoming one of the greatest campaigns hosted by Louis Vuitton made for Gen Z. Since Gen Z is addicted to the internet, they tend to stream Netflix shows most of the time; thus, the brand dresses their favorite characters with their brands as a form of advertisement, mostly aiming at the Gen Z.
The Gen is always on their phones most of the time, especially when in the stores. Once, the most important part of a store was the kids’ section where the kids went to play as their parents did shopping. Today, with the Gen Z generation, the most important area in the stores is the charging stations that are desired for their devices while they shop. Since they use their phones so much in the stores, keeping the batteries fresh is important. As much as they love in-store shopping, they still want the retailers to understand that technology must drive the shopping experience. Therefore, they still want knowledgeable sales professionals to assist them in doing their shopping and meeting their expectations as claimed on the internet. To do so, they tend to turn to Google and social media for advice on what to shop for and where. At this point is where the luxury brands that have embraced technology benefit as when they surf through the internet, they are most likely to stamp into the Louis Vuitton brand and its product that are there on their website. Despite the boutiques and shopping centers, the luxury brand also depends on the internet to advertise their products, which are most likely to be accessed by Gen Z.
Lastly, the Gen Z personnel are the most influential individuals on the planet today. This is so basing on their knowledge of the internet and its services; thus, most people tend to turn to them for help. According to a study done, over 70% of parents across the globe turn to their Gen Z kids for help in making a buying decision, especially for fashion advice. So as much as they are personally impacting the sales, they are also introducing their family members, which results in more sales for the luxury brands. Also, Gen Z wants quick access to the internet, thus the presence of fast internet service. Louis Vuitton has made this possible by ensuring the flow of freely accessible WI-FI in every one of their stores across the globe for easy accessibility of their products on their platforms.
In conclusion, the Gen Z generation does not prefer online shopping as they want to have the experience of in-store shopping for themselves. A place they get to try things out and live to tell the story to other people. However, as much as they want the experience, technology should also be involved, and it should play a major role in their shopping. They do not want to wait for too long and the services provided should be faster, and to their expectations, otherwise, they will move on to the next shop. Louis Vuitton has ensured their satisfaction by embracing technology that Gen Z relates to, and it’s at their pace to ensure a successful business relationship between the brand and this generation of consumers.
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