LVMH luxury goods sales rise across all divisions
louis vuitton outletDemand for luxury goods shows no sign of stalling at LVMH, which has seen a 17% rise in sales in the first three months of 2011.The owner of Louis Vuitton and Moet & Chandon champagne reported sales of 5.25bn euros ($7.5bn; ￡4.6bn) in the quarter, beating analysts' estimates.The rise came despite expectations that Japan's earthquake could hit sales in what is a key market for LVMH.LVMH said US and European sales were improving, while Asia remained strong. "All business groups recorded double-digit organic revenue growth in the quarter," the France-based firm said in a statement.The wines and spirits, and watches and jewellery divisions, "continued their strong recovery due to a confirmed return in client demand".In March, LVMH agreed to buy Italian jeweller Bulgari for 3.7bn euros in a deal analysts said suggested LVMH could make a bid for luxury peer Hermes. LVMH owns more than 20% of Hermes.Interflora has begun a European legal challenge against Marks and Spencer over the department store's alleged piggy-backing on Google searches for the flower retailer's website.M&S paid Google to promote its own flower business in search results any time a user looks up Interflora's name.The M&S link would appear directly below Interflora's in the search engine's "sponsored links" section.The case follows a similar failed case against Google from luxuries firm LVMH.Legal precedent In that case, the French company - famous for its Louis Vuitton brand - claimed Google was unfairly promoting third-party retailers in its sponsored search results.LVMH wanted web users to go straight to its own online store, instead of buying through an intermediary.Google won that European court case in March.But the Interflora case differs in two important respects.Loss of business Firstly, in the LVMH case, the French luxuries manufacturer wanted to control its brands, but was not actually facing a loss of business, because the retailers were still selling its goods.
louis vuitton outlet storeHowever, M&S is seeking to promote its flower business in direct competition to Interflora.M&S said that it is "industry wide practice, which we say is not unlawful". Interflora declined to comment.Buying and selling Secondly, unlike LVMH, Interflora is not suing Google for selling keywords that the company believes to be trademark-protected.Instead, the florist is suing its competitor, M&S, for buying those keywords.This follows the European Court of Justice pronouncement in the LVMH case that Google had "not infringed trademark law by allowing advertisers to purchase keywords corresponding to their competitors' trademarks".M&S said that it was "encouraged by other cases which have gone to the Court of Justice on this question."Google said that it believes "user interest is best served by maximizing the choice of keywords" and their "guiding principle has always been that advertising should benefit users".Google has not commented on the Interflora case, as it is not a party to it.At either end of Milan's expensive Via Montenapoleone sit two quite different temples to fashion. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, built in 1877, sits near the Duomo, and hosts Louis Vuitton and the first Prada store set up in 1913. At the other end is the thoroughly modern megastore of Giorgio Armani. In addition to Armani's expensive catwalk collections, the store showcases his children's wear, a bookshop, flower shop and a branch of every celebrity's favourite restaurant, Nobu. Soon, it will also have an Armani Hotel - to go with the one already opened in Dubai.
outlet louis vuitton storeNot long ago, it was only in stores like these that shoppers could buy designer products. Yes, there were luxury fashion websites, but they used to be a mess of slow-loading Flash movies and "look books" of high fashion ad campaigns. Direct shopping was the least these websites were about. Not anymore. 'Quality of Internet'Much of what is available in Mr Armani's store can be found online, at armani.com. "Mr Armani was among the very, very first," Federico Marchetti says. "He was among a group of innovators."Mr Marchetti's company, Yoox, is one of a new breed of hi-tech firms that are powering the online strategies of some of the world's biggest luxury retailers. Yoox manages the websites for 23 brands - including Armani, Ermenegildo Zegna and Marni - and has a waiting list of 33 more. After years of shunning the internet because it was too slow and broadband connections were few and far between, fashion designers are finally embracing it. "The big fear was the quality of the internet, and I have to say that they were quite right to wait," Mr Marchetti says. Yoox.com is an online seller of discounted high-end goods. Mr Marchetti launched the company as a tiny start-up in 2000."The idea was to be the link between the internet world and the fashion world because these two were, and are, very far apart," he says. The company went public last year, the only share sale in Italy in 2009. Yoox is now worth 400m euros ($555m, ￡347m). Burberry innovatesBurberry has been on the cutting-edge of innovation in the luxury fashion world. The British firm has been providing live streams for its key Fashion Week shows to customers around the world.
louis vuitton outlet stores onlineAnyone could click on the dresses - and order them before the show had even finished. Burberry's collections will be delivered to your house within seven weeks - a far cry from the usual six-month turnaround for the bi-annual spring and autumn collections."It's a very powerful way to acquire long-term relationships with their customers," Mr Gardner says. "They're seeing new clothes at the same time as the buyers."It allows fashion companies to bypass department stores and connect directly with customers. Burberry has its own mini-social networking series, called the Art of the Trench, which draws attention to different ways to wear its signature trenchcoat.The firm now receives 30% of its website traffic from social media like Twitter, according to web analytics firm Experian Hitwise.Artisans benefit tooInnovations in technology have also allowed small players to compete. Boticca.com came about after co-founder Kiyan Foroughi visited a souk in Morocco and spotted some high-quality jewellery amidst a lot of cheap tat. Mr Foroughi and his partner, Avid Larizadeh, launched the website to link sellers from Estonia, Dubai, Colombia and beyond with customers around the world. "It's difficult for them to have mass distribution because every piece is bespoke," Ms Larizadeh says. "With us, they are able to have a marketplace where they will distribute globally."Because they don't have the overheads of traditional and expensive bricks-and-mortar shops, tiny start-ups like Boticca can compete with the likes of Cartier and Tiffany.
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