Gartner L2 Releases Annual Ranking of 77 Luxury Fashion Brands Highlighting Digital Best Practices for Reaching the Global Consumer

NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital benchmarking firm Gartner L2 releases its annual L2 Digital IQ Index: Fashion Global 2018 report.

The Gartner L2 report benchmarks the digital performance of 77 luxury fashion brands operating in the U.S. and western Europe, evaluating their digital performance across site & ecommerce, digital marketing, social media, and mobile. The report provides key digital strategies for fashion brands to navigate the increasing globalization of the fashion market specific to key markets including the U.S., U.K, France, and Germany. Index brands are classified as either Genius, Gifted, Average, Challenged, or Feeble.

"Fashion brands are accelerating their digital investments to keep up with a globalizing commerce landscape and shifts in consumer expectations," said Brian Lee, Associate Director at Gartner L2. "However, this rush to catch up has led to uneven implementation, and some brands fail to thoughtfully consider digital features before integrating them, resulting in a lack of sophisticated nuance, especially as brands expand distribution into new markets in search of consumers."

Key findings from Gartner L2's report include:

Emphasizing Omnichannel: Fashion brands in the U.S. continue to lag other retail verticals in omnichannel fulfillment functionality. Only 29 percent of Index brands have click and collect as opposed to 71 percent of department stores, offering consumers less incentive buy directly from a brand online.

European Customer Service: While brands have upped their game for U.S. customer service offerings, they have lagged behind in translating features to European sites. Less than 50 percent of brands in Europe list customer service in local time zones, with only 36 percent doing so in Germany.

Social Commerce on the Rise: Instagram remains the focus for brands investing in social commerce. Year-over-year adoption of Instagram Shopping has jumped from 12 to 42 percent. Twenty-one percent of brands have integrated a Facebook Shop tab on their pages, however many fail to actually add a meaningful number of SKUs.

"Despite lower spending power, millennials are more likely to purchase luxury goods than any other age cohort," explained Christina Yang, Research Associate at Gartner L2. "They have significantly different ideas about luxury than prior generations, and brands must be increasingly reliant on values-based marketing both in the U.S. and abroad, in order to target and reach these consumers"

The report features case studies on brands including, but not limited to, Acne Studios, Burberry, Coach, Diane Von Furstenberg, Fendi, Gucci, Kate Spade, Louis Vuitton, and Stuart Weitzman.

To access a complete media-only copy of L2's Digital IQ Index : Fashion Global 2018, contact [email protected]

About Gartner L2
Gartner L2 benchmarks the digital performance of over 2,200 brands across 12 sectors globally. The Gartner L2 Digital IQ Index is the global standard for measuring digital competence. We analyze 1,250 data points across Site & E-Commerce, Digital Marketing, Social Media, and Mobile to provide brands with actionable, data driven insights on their digital performance.

SOURCE Gartner L2