How Can Tiffany Create A New Luxury Retail Experience?

"We have high hopes for Beijing's new store, and we are pouring our energy into it, because Chinese consumers are expecting more and more of us. They are already the most knowledgeable consumers in the world."

The world famous jewelry and wrist watch brand Tiffany & Co. (hereinafter referred to as Tiffany) senior vice president Philippe Galti e said to "gorgeous ambition".

Tiffany is now officially unveiled at the China World Trade Center mall in Beijing, the largest boutique in China.

With a total area of 500 square meters and a total of two floors, the new store looks at the newly opened boutique from the China World Trade Center flyover. Its facade makes it easy to think of Audrey Hepburn's Tiffany flagship store in Fifth Avenue, Tiffany, in the movie "breakfast".

In fact, the ingenuity of new store design is here: limestone and black granite exterior walls, artistic style grooves, carefully carved patterns of wheat ears, Atlas giant clocks, and other ubiquitous New York elements are all recreating the style of the flagship store in New York, and are also paying tribute to Tiffany's 182 year history.

In terms of the luxury brands that are deeply ploughing the Chinese market, digital marketing and online channels are the hot words in the industry. Offline stores actually seem to be a forgotten topic.

But it is undeniable that brand stores are always the most effective carriers for conveying brand spirit, occupying users' minds, and displaying the uniqueness of luxury brands.

Why did Tiffany invest heavily in China to open up 500 square meters of space at this time?

Does this new boutique suggest that Tiffany will open a new round of physical retail innovation in the Chinese market?

At the opening ceremony of the China World Trade Center mall boutique held in Beijing recently, "Tiffany" and Philippe Galti e, a senior vice president, have conducted in-depth exchanges on the above issues.

New architectural language expression

Immersive retail experience

"For Tiffany, China and the capital Beijing are very important markets.

We have positioned this newly opened store in the flagship store (flagship), and Beijing is well deserved.

Because Tiffany started here to continue to write "love story" with Chinese consumers.

Philippe Galti e said in an interview with "gorgeous ambition".

Philippe Galti Tiffany&, senior vice president of Tiffany& Co. Tiffany International Sales Department, is responsible for the operation of Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific region, Japanese companies, as well as global store design and planning, sales and operation, global customer management and full channel management.

Philippe Galti, who joined Tiffany in 2015, has served in Cartier for 15 years and served as head of China, Korea, Southeast Asia and Japan and international retail director.

It is worth mentioning that, in the 18 years of entering China, Tiffany has returned to the brand's starting point in the Chinese market, Beijing, which is very meaningful.

In 2001, Tiffany entered China, and its first store was located in Beijing.

With the opening of China World Trade Center new store, Tiffany now has 35 stores in China, covering 22 cities.

It is not hard to see that Beijing's new store is quite innovative and subversive for Tiffany, who has entered the Chinese market for 18 years.

Apart from continuing and inheriting the brand history, it will strive to create a new retail experience with interaction and personality style.

"You can take this store as a permanent exhibition of Tiffany," Philippe Galti e stressed in the interview.

He said the goal of this new store is to present the best brand to customers and provide the ultimate immersion experience.

In his view, the entity store is an effective contact with consumers, and the real experience it brings can not be replaced.

If ingenuity and creative ingenuity are the "hard standard" of luxury stores, Tiffany's new store also wants to reflect the new interpretation of "modern luxury".

In the view of Philippe Galti e, "modern luxury" should be inclusive, which means that luxury stores do not have to be "very formal".

In fact, Tiffany has been exploring new retail entities since last year. The landmark event is the world's first Style Studio concept store launched in London, providing private customization, automated vending machines and other services.

Through a series of new attempts, Tiffany hopes to change the traditional "luxury store" image of the traditional luxury stores, and bring consumers the experience of "casual and informal".

The retail concept is spreading in a large scale.

Philippe Galti e said to "gorgeous ambition" that Tiffany will continue to refurbish stores this year, such as "personalized customization" and other services will be launched in more cities in China.

"The white paper on fashion consumption of the new generation of China in 2018" shows that when it comes to offline experience, consumers have the highest voice in the function area of "personalized customization" for physical stores.

Philippe Galti has the same feeling. He believes that today's younger generation of consumers not only focuses on the quality and creativity of the brand, but also has strong demand for personalization.

In Tiffany new store in Beijing, the "personalized carving area" is specially set up. Customers can engrave personal information on diamond rings and other products according to their own preferences, such as name abbreviation, alphabet, date and so on, which can be designed by themselves.

Above: personalized engraving area

Tiffany also designed a "art exhibition area" for Beijing new store to display more works of artists from home and abroad, including Tiffany's Dream of China series with Chinese artist Wang Jin, and River Rock, which is cooperated with glass artist Jeff Zimmerman.

Left up: "River Rock", "China dream" series.

In addition, the new boutique has also added VIP rooms.

Distinguished from the modern style of the shop as a whole, it is a minimalist and white style. The VIP room is based on the brown line and the Chinese style decoration. It shows elegant and luxurious style, and the warm color lights create a warm and relaxing atmosphere.

Borrow more riches

Let customers embrace "modern luxury"

In Philippe Galti e, optimism and tolerance from New York determine the unique position of Tiffany.

This brand spirit is reflected in the product, that is, by extending the product line, bringing "everyday luxury" to the new generation of consumers.

Inside the shop, it is a more modernist decoration style. Tiffany blue decoration can be seen everywhere. With mirror glass elements, the store space can be further extended, not only the area is bigger, but also the products are richer.

The retail area covers the most representative series of brands, including Tiffany T, Tiffany True, Tiffany Keys, Tiffany Paper Flowers, Tiffany HardWear, and high jewelry series, which shows the modern mood of the corner.

In addition to jewellery products, stores have specially opened up lifestyle areas, displaying household utensils, including tableware, pet products, leather goods, etc., such as stylus bookmarks, silver clips and ball pens, which have aroused heated debate in the Internet.

Philippe Galti e emphasizes that Tiffany hopes to reach every consumer. The emphasis is not on the age division of consumers, but on the realization of brand value through "different positioning products and ingenious product combinations".

After 14 years, Tiffany launched the same name perfume and created considerable sales in a short time. The The Blue Box Caf e, which was opened in Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York in October 2017, is now the world's net red coffee shop. It has been launched from thousand yuan bubble toy to 10000 yuan wool ball, and the daily series of "Everyday Objects" has always been a hot topic in social media.

In addition to being more suitable for everyday scenes, Tiffany's design language also collides with changing styles in iteration.

For example, the Tiffany T series highlights the bold design attitude of the brand with concise and clear design style and architectural features. The new Tiffany T True series continues this classic wind, and deducts the sense of avant-garde with the "T" letter.

In order to continuously enhance the product's creativity and enhance the efficiency of the brand from creativity to finished products, Tiffany also set up an innovation factory in June last year, and now plans to launch the jewellery series from here in 2020.

Speaking of the Diamond Source Initiative released by the brand at the beginning of the year, Philippe Galti e emphasized in an interview that Tiffany is the only jeweller in the industry that can disclose the information of diamonds.

In fact, "Diamond source pparency" is imperative. Tiffany has pioneered the industry, not only strengthening brand differentiation, but also winning the favor of a new generation of consumers.

Tiffany Beijing new store has become a practitioner of the diamond Source Initiative.

When customers come to the store and pick up jewellery products in front of the counter, they can get information about diamond origin and so on through the corresponding display labels.

China's domestic consumption potential remains to be excavated

Competition in the high-end jewelry market is getting more intense

According to the 2018 fiscal year report released by Tiffany, Asia Pacific accounted for 28% of the total global sales in 2018, and the Greater China region contributed 60% of the total sales in the Asia Pacific region.

As Philippe Galti said, "the Chinese market has become a vital role in the growth of Tiffany."

The strategic deployment behind the new store in Beijing is the brand innovation that Tiffany has implemented over the past year.

In March 2018, the new CEO Alessandro Bogliolo announced its six major strategic plans after its accession. Upgrading the physical store experience is an important part.

Above: Tiffany China World Trade Center boutique "art exhibition area"

Judging from Tiffany's current performance, the reform has achieved initial results.

In the 2018 fiscal year, Tiffany sales increased by 7% to $4 billion 400 million over the same period, the biggest increase since 2014, and net profit rose 58%.

Tiffany recently released the first quarter fiscal year 2019 financial report shows that by the global exchange rate fluctuations, global tourists consumption reduction, sales fell 3% year-on-year.

This may mean that despite the initial success of the Tiffany reform, this is just the beginning and still faces many challenges.

And the market demand of Tiffany's high-end jewellery market is increasing. More luxury goods groups that are mainly in leather goods and clothing business are trying to enter the market.

According to the Bain consultation report, the growth rate of jewellery category reached 7% in 2018, which is one of the fastest growing categories in the luxury industry.

This year, Kai Yun group's flagship brand Gucci, Italy luxury brand Giorgio Armani, Prada have launched a series of high-end jewelry.

It is worth noting that in the latest quarterly report, Tiffany stressed that consumption in mainland China remained strong and sales continued to grow.

Earlier, Bain consulting pointed out in the Chinese luxury market research report that the trend of luxury consumption reflow in mainland China will continue in the next few years.

There is no doubt that the potential of China's domestic market remains to be explored for luxury brands.

In the increasingly fierce market competition, facing the competitive market of the mainland market, "waking up the attention of the new generation of consumers and letting the brand spirit take the lead in the minds of the younger generation" is becoming more and more important for Tiffany and other luxury jewelry brands.

As Philippe Galti said in the interview, "every Tiffany blue box contains a story of love, and behind every story is a connection of emotions."

Obviously, in the eighteenth years of entering the Chinese market, Tiffany is using the new architectural language to express, localize and digitalize the strategy without losing any details, so as to deepen the emotional connection with consumers, and widely interpret the "love and dream" that the brand has always believed.

Author: Zhu Ruoyu