Service design needs for luxury e-commerce: An empirical study

Nowadays, we are just in the launching phase of luxury e-business, it is not clear whether it should be served with a luxury service from a physical shop, or not. Do consumers especially wish a pre- and after-sales service which is taken in charge by a physical shop while buying on the official luxury Website? After the opinion of luxury bloggers, we do know that there is a need for luxury service offer which comes with luxury e-commerce in general and specifically for pre- and after-sales services[1]. Our results are based on 168 questionnaires from international luxury e-shoppers. They show clearly that luxury consumers, who buy luxury goods via Internet, do need a physical shop. Additionally this physical shop has to assume all pre- and after-sales issue. So, luxury e-commerce does not replace the physical independent wholesaler network, but has to be integrated in a complementary strategy with it.