La Prairie’s Skin Caviar
Swiss skincare marketer La Prairie is expanding its global ecommerce presence by partnering with cloud commerce solutions provider Demandware.
Prior to working with Demandware, La Prairie relied on a combination of hosted and on-premise platforms that limited what the skincare marketer was able to do. With a “cloud solution,” La Prairie will have a consistent experience for consumers across multiple sites regardless of location.
“The ecommerce channel of business, both our own Web site and our digital retail platforms, is a key branding mechanism and a powerful tool for us,” said Renee Tavoularis, vice president of global ecommerce and digital marketing at La Prairie, New York. “It’s not just about selling products, but it’s a place where we create luxurious, immersive, compelling brand experiences for our customers, turning them into La Prairie loyalists.
“La Prairie’s luxury consumer is always connected – searching, shopping, and sharing as she globe-trots around the world,” she said. “The notion of a customer journey is no longer considered a linear path, and the lines of offline and online are more and more blurred.
“We look to engage our customers at any and all touch points – on and offline – via unified brand experiences through an integration of commerce, content, and community.”
Demandware also works with Barneys New York, DVF, Lancôme and Saks Fifth Avenue.
In the cloud
With Demandware acting as the “backbone” of its ecommerce, La Prairie has recently relaunched its United States Web site, laprairie.com. The brand has also relaunched its Australian and British Web presence under Demandware’s cloud solutions.
Currently, La Prairie sells its collection of luxury skincare products in more than 4,600 locations in 90 different countries. By 2016, the skincare marketer plans to launch 8 additional ecommerce sites to better serve its global consumer base.
La Prairie’s new Web site powered by Demandware
La Prairie’s move to ecommerce backed by Demandware shows the brand’s commitment to “perfection in both function and form” in terms of products and digital delivery. The new Web sites aim to provide seamless experiences for La Prairie consumers no matter their country of origin.
When designing ecommerce, and a Web presence in general, it is vital that the experience is consistent for discerning consumers. Similar to the in-store experience, consumers come to expect the same level of quality and care from a brand online.
Demandware provided a solution for La Prairie’s previous ecommerce Web site that was considered to be too clunky to support the skincare marketer’s growth and expansion plans.
La Prairie’s global ecommerce will feature rich imagery, detailed product pages and immersive experiences such as the “Your Skincare Advisor” section. This section recreates the in-store beauty counter experience by asking the consumer a series of questions regarding her skin type.
La Prairie’s Your Skincare Advisor consultation
Questions include skin type, current skin care concern, SPF preferences and eye area concerns. After the questions are answered, La Prairie’s Your Skincare Advisor generates a personalized solution.
The solution is broken down into three products: serum, face and eye. The consumer can purchase all three products at once or select one specific item.
Each product includes a link to learn more about the benefits, application, the science behind the item and hear from a brand ambassador.
Personalized results from Your Skincare Advisor questions
Also, the consumer can share via email, save or print the results. Currently, the consumer can not share the personalization results on social media.
Mirror images
A Web site should reinterpret the in-store experience by using similar touch points that create a bond between brand and consumer.
For instance, beauty marketer Lancôme bolstered ecommerce through a revamped mobile experience and a Web site just in time for holiday shopping.
The brand’s mobile, tablet and Web sites were redone to give affluent beauty buyers a consistent brand experience on multiple platforms. These new updates added to the user experience with improved category browsing, simplified checkout and a more-detailed product page (see story).
Also, jeweler Tiffany & Co. intertwined its fine jewelry collections with heritage on an interactive and simple ecommerce experience made possible by a redesigned Web site.
Debuting Oct. 21, the updated platform was designed as a personal invitation for consumers to shop or learn about the history surrounding Tiffany’s collections. Although simple in layout, the Web site immerses consumers in Tiffany’s DNA by including details of its history rather than focusing solely on ecommerce (see story).
Demandware allows La Prairie to refine the consumer experience to be seamless and consistent across the board.
“With Demandware’s cloud platform, La Prairie spends less time managing technology and upgrades, and instead can focus on refining and enhancing the customer experience needed to cater to its luxury buyers” said Adam Forrest, director of product marketing, Demandware, Burlington, MA. “Demandware provides La Prairie with the control to both manage and deliver a consistent brand experience that demonstrates the brand’s high-end quality and expertise in the beauty industry.
“La Prairie uses Demandware as the central platform for its global rollout to simplify the process and effectively connect the brand to its customers around the world,” he said. “The Demandware commerce platform provides retailers with a strong technology backbone delivered in the cloud, enabling the speed, agility and scalability to respond to market changes and customer demands quickly and efficiently.
“This allows retailers to give their customers the same brand experience regardless of where, when and how they want to shop. Demandware’s cloud-based platform also enables retailers to consistently stay ahead of the new retail realities with the seamless release of new functionality into the commerce platform.”
Final Take
Jen King, editorial assistant on Luxury Daily, New York