Gen Z is taking over the luxury market and by 2025, will represent an astounding 70% of all luxury spending.

As these digitally-native shoppers gain influence, they’re expecting better online shopping experiences. Having grown up with access to the internet, traditional eCommerce journeys and basic digital marketing strategies are not enough to capture their attention.

While Gen Z is a growing segment, they are only one part of the equation. Though these shoppers are the earliest adopters of new content types and retail technologies, their online shopping habits are emblematic of where luxury eCommerce is headed more broadly. 

To exceed luxury shoppers’ evolving expectations, brands and retailers are optimizing customer journeys end-to-end, and unsurprisingly, high-quality content production is fundamental to their success. 

From innovations in imaging to immersive digital solutions, brands and retailers have more tools than ever to elevate their content. Here are three ways to get started: 

Create 3D Product Imagery 

Despite a growing reliance on online retail, shoppers are still cautious about purchasing luxury products online. For years, a lack of innovation in how products were shown digitally meant that discerning size, shape, and quality was as good as guessing. 

Now, however, with breakthroughs in digital imaging technology, luxury customers expect extreme clarity when shopping for high-value products online. And for most - the more detail provided, the better. 

Luxury brands and retailers can address customers' desire for clarity with 3D product imagery. These renderings provide a 360 interactive product visualization, granting shoppers a full view of a selected product and enabling them to zoom in for additional detail. With the ability to explore every angle of a luxury product up close, directly on its online product page, 3D images are as close to viewing objects in-store as it gets. 

Businesses across the retail industry are catching on, and 87% of retailers say 3D image creation is necessary to deliver their product imagery strategy. At FARFETCH Platform Solutions (FPS), we integrate WANNA to help brands and retailers improve their content across desktop, mobile, iOS, and WeChat. WANNA’s solutions enable luxury brands to showcase products like handbags with industry-leading 3D realism, allowing customers to get a better understanding of size, capacity, material, and texture as if they had the product in their hands.

As a luxury brand or retailer, you're expected to lead the pack. In partnership with a technology provider with in-depth knowledge of luxury experiences, you can simplify the process of integrating 3D imagery into your eCommerce channels. With the right expertise, your content will be high-quality, easily accessible, and reflect the experience of viewing your products in person. Simultaneously, 3D imagery will help drive conversion online and reduce your returns rate with improved customer insight online. 

Integrate Shoppable Content

With the launch of Instagram Shopping and TikTok Shop, social media has given customers the luxury of purchasing directly at the source of inspiration. As a result, 74% of Gen Zers say their mobile phones are their primary tool for shopping online. 

Beyond social media, luxury shoppers now expect the same ease of discovery and check-out across online touchpoints. To streamline these retail experiences, luxury brands, and retailers are upping their content production strategies with shoppable content.

Shoppable content allows customers to discover, learn more, and purchase items directly from brands' and retailers' images and videos - eliminating the barriers to purchase that come from having to track down an item they see in-app or on-website. 

Our partners at Mackintosh worked with Smartzer to create a highly effective shoppable video campaign for their SS23 collection. These videos lived on the Mackintosh homepage and featured seamless product pop-ups to find out more about each product and click through to purchase. By reducing the overall number of clicks required to find and buy a product, the content hit daily view records and achieved an impressive 51% engagement rate.

Shoppable images and videos bring the experience of exploring luxury products in-boutique online. Similar to seeing an outfit in a catalog or image in-store and asking a sales associate to try it on, shoppable content makes product engagement immediate and seamless for luxury customers.

Build Virtual Showrooms 

Innovations in Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are bringing luxury shopfloor experiences to the digital realm. 

With investment into these new technologies, brands and retailers can build interactive digital content that either replicates their physical boutiques or offers an entirely new virtual space for customer interaction. These 3D, branded spaces create new points for customer engagement and unlock touchpoints for brand storytelling online.

Emperia, a virtual world platform for retail, works with luxury retailers to develop first-of-a-kind digital experiences. With Harrods, Emperia helped to launch the department store's pop-up for the launch of Burberry’s new signature Olympia bag. The virtual world was ultramodern and featured if-you-know-you-know details, like Harrods' iconic store awnings. Presenting customers globally with new forms of content to engage with the launch, Harrods recorded an 87% sell-through rate on the products featured within the virtual space. 

Shoppers are eager to engage with this new content and 70% of Gen Zers that have visited a virtual store say they made a purchase. 

For luxury brands and retailers, content strategies no longer begin with lookbook imagery and end with product photography. Instead, luxury customers expect content to integrate new digital touchpoints, offer new points of engagement, and more opportunities to purchase.

To find out more about how FPS can help you optimize your digital content contact us here.