Digital luxury retailing and the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study

Giuseppe Colella and Cesare Amatulli

International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 2022, vol. 13, issue 2, 157-189

Abstract: Luxury brands are increasingly realising the central importance of digital technology in addressing consumers' needs and desires. In this context, several studies have focused on the role that digital technologies play in luxury brands' communication, but few of them have addressed luxury brands' digital retail distribution strategies. Understanding this topic is especially critical amidst changes in global economics - many of them spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic - that are reshaping how luxury consumers shop at and interact with retailers. Against that backdrop, this research pursues a twofold objective, namely: identifying the current effects of the pandemic on luxury brands' digital retailing and illuminating the challenges said brands will face in the near future. Given the sparse explorations of digital retailing (especially for luxury brands) and the extraordinary nature of the pandemic, this research uses a qualitative-exploratory approach based on semi-structured one-to-one interviews with experts from a leading digital marketing company in order to develop some initial insights. The limitations of this research are due to the cut-off period and the use of a restricted sample. In addition to discussing the theoretical and managerial implications of the results, the paper provides interesting guidance for future research.

Keywords: digital marketing; digital retailing; luxury marketing; digital luxury retailing; e-commerce; electronic commerce; pandemic; qualitative study. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=121804 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijemre:v:13:y:2022:i:2:p:157-189

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().