Distract Yourself With This Luxury Shopping Survey
Distract Yourself With This Luxury Shopping Survey
What can you tell the industry about the reasons for the luxury downturn?
Many of you who live in the U.S. are probably looking for a way to distract from today’s election results. And those of you outside the U.S. who are not going to spend the day fretting over our election will have time to kill or something to procrastinate. So you may as well spend a few minutes on taking Back Row’s first-ever shopping survey.
The luxury downturn is shaping up to be the big story in fashion as 2024 draws to a close. Though there have been outliers, luxury fashion sales have been down pretty much across the board. In its most recent quarterly earnings, Dior parent company LVMH reported a 3 percent sales decline, with a 5 percent decrease in fashion and leather goods. Competitor Kering’s sales were down 16 percent in the third quarter, worse than analyst expectations of a 12 percent drop, while at Gucci, revenue decreased 25 percent.
Outliers include Hermès, which saw an 11 percent increase in the third quarter from the same period last year, though growth is slowing from 17 percent in the first quarter and 13 percent in the second.
So, what gives? I’ll have more analysis in the coming week or two (this newsletter marches to the news cycle, and the election could end up dictating coverage this week for all kinds of reasons). But so far, analysts and the media have mostly blamed slowing sales in China. Also, we were in a luxury bubble during and coming out of the pandemic, when people had pent up cash that they weren’t spending on things like travel, not to mention thousands of dollars in stimulus checks. Thanks to “Retail Confessions,” we know a lot of parents in the U.S. were blowing those at the Gucci store.
But not all luxury executives are convinced this slump is just because of China. Chanel’s watch and jewelry division head Frederic Grangie told Swiss outlet Le Temps this “crisis” could stretch into 2026. He blamed it on “luxury fatigue.”
"There's this feeling hitting mature markets in which customers are starting to ask what's the point of this industry," he said, according to Fashion Network.
This is where the survey comes in. I want to know how this community feels about luxury fashion — if you’re buying it, what you’re buying, and why. A lot of people who run the luxury fashion industry read this newsletter, so it’s also your way to sound off to them directly when they see the results.
The survey ought to take just a few minutes. Thank you in advance for responding.
Amy - thank you for the survey, but none of the options reflect anything for vintage/secondhand buyers, only firsthand. I understand if that's by design to act as a bellwether to brands, but a lot of people do shop 'secondhand first' now and it'd be nice for the survey to at least have that option to tick off even if the focus is on what people buy at retail.
I'd love to know what this means for future pricing. In past years there would be a significant year over year price hike (that didn't seem justified, purely appeared as greed) with most luxury brands. Will they now bring prices back down to get consumers spending again?