Luxury shopping encompasses a wide array of luxe items, and remains a highly sought-after audience for retail companies, brands, and luxury advertisers. This niche audience, however, has undergone a transformation as new generations of consumers change what it means to be a luxury shopper.
Shopping for luxury items began as a primarily brick and mortar shopping experience. Despite this, luxury shopping online offers a more catered and personalized shopping destination, bringing on-demand items with many options in a way that brick and mortar retail cannot. In fact, Trendwatch notes that “connectivity has shifted the frontiers of luxury,” and that the global luxury market will reach $340B in revenue by 2020.
The rise of luxury shopping online also brings about new trends, including a vast new market for luxury resellers. Reselling online can bring about concerns of authenticity and safety, which brings more luxury shoppers to safe marketplaces like eBay, where luxury brands are hosted at good value, without the risk of fake or sub-par items. Shopping for resold items means luxury staples, like handbags or watches, are available to a new generation of luxury shoppers. Younger shoppers are beginning to interact with high-end brands, making luxury more accessible to a wider audience of shoppers than ever before.
Who Are Luxury Shoppers?
Deloitte recently projected 99M millennials, versus 77M baby boomers, make up a larger segment of the luxury market. Millennial shoppers are cultivating trends, and setting expectations for what a seamless, connected, online shopping experience should be. However, Forbes notes that baby boomers still hold the spending power- making it important to remain inclusive across generations.
Luxury Shoppers on eBay1
The eBay marketplace caters to a diverse range of shoppers, from auto enthusiasts, to collectors, to passionate luxury shoppers. Over 15M luxury shoppers visit the premium eBay destination annually, with a staggering 2.2M of those customers spending over $1,000 or more per transaction. eBay also hosts 21M shoppers wielding premium black and platinum credit cards while hunting for their perfect luxe item.
Top brands are important to luxury shoppers, and eBay hosts a wealth of highly-sought after brands. $98.6M is spent annually on Louis Vuitton handbags, with an additional $40M spent on Gucci and Hermes purses. Watches are another top area for luxury shoppers on eBay, with over $260M spent on Rolex, Cartier, and David Yurman timepieces. In fact, a Rolex is purchased on eBay every 10 minutes. Even large-scale luxury products have found a thriving market on eBay, with over $689M spend on top vehicle brands like Mercedes, Lexus, Cadillac, and BMW.
Trends on the Horizon
The rise of online shopping has helped make luxury brands and items more accessible than ever before. With luxury shopping online, it is important for shoppers to put their trust in a marketplace that protects them, backing their high-value purchases with added security. eBay has a wealth of shoppers hunting for brand new high-end items, resold luxury products for less, or rare and vintage luxury they can’t find anywhere else.
On eBay, they are backed by our safe marketplace values, as well an added layer of security for luxury handbags called eBay Authenticate. With this service, independent experts authenticate, list, and sell high-end handbags for consumers, so selling their name-brand handbag is a breeze. In turn, shoppers get a highly regulated, monitored, and trustworthy shopping experience in the pursuit of their dream bag. eBay backs each handbag sold through eBay Authenticate for double the purchase price.
Luxury shopping has moved beyond a status symbol for the few, to a more open and inclusive market, catering to online shoppers and high-value consumers of all ages, across devices and platforms. These high-end brands are more accessible than ever to a larger audience of shoppers who are motivated, backed by high-limit credit cards, but in return want good value for luxury and demand absolute authenticity and safety. eBay meets the unique demands of the evolving luxury audience, to provide top brands with security and ease.