NEW YORK, Feb. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital
benchmarking firm L2 Inc releases its 9th annual Digital IQ
Index: Watches & Jewelry 2018
The L2 report benchmarks the digital performance of 70 Watches
& Jewelry brands. The report provides insight into the digital
strategies of gray market and reseller sites as well as best
practices for brands to enhance their digital investments in order
to reach the growing cohort of Millennial luxury consumers. The
Digital IQ Index methodology examines a brand's strengths and
weaknesses across the four digital dimensions of Site and
E-Commerce, Digital Marketing, Social, and Mobile. Index brands are
classified as either Genius, Gifted, Average, Challenged, or
Feeble.
"2017 marked a return to growth for the Watches and Jewelry
sector," noted Brian Lee, Associate
Director at L2. "Primarily driven by recovering sales to Chinese
consumers, both in China and
abroad, winning brands are those who invest in strategies to reach
new demographics and younger consumers on social media and who are
investing in new distribution channels."
Key findings from L2's report include:
Increasing E-Commerce Adoption: Five watch brands
launched direct-to-consumer e-commerce in the past year. Sixty-two
percent of Index brands now supports DTC e-commerce, up from 53
percent in 2017. However, DTC remains primarily the mark of
affordable and aspirational brands, 90 percent of who offer DTC
e-commerce compared to just 35 percent of luxury brands.
Losing Visibility to Discounter Sites: Search remains a
weakness for Index brands. Sixty-four percent of Google search
results for Rolex go to resale sites, while 42 percent of search
results for Omega take consumers to gray market pages. Even more
drastic, 85 percent of Google search results for Roger Dubuis are for resale sites,13 percent go
to gray markets, leaving just 2 percent of results that link back
to official retailers.
Instant Touchpoints: Index brands are increasingly
improving response times on Facebook Messenger as 33 percent now
reply within minutes. Fifty-nine percent have also introduced menus
with guided questions to preempt frequent inquiries.
Jaeger-Lecoultre takes it one step further, integrating Messenger
in the primary navigation on both their desktop and mobile
site.
"Watches & Jewelry brands have been hesitant to invest in
digital initiatives," explained Reid
Sherard, Associate Director at L2. "However, long standing
digital holdouts like Vacheron Constantin and Buccellati have
recently become part of the vanguard by investing in digitally
native growth channels like Hodinkee and Net-a-Porter over
department stores or existing independent retailers."
The report features case studies on brands including but not
limited to: Cartier, Mr Porter, Pandora, Ritani, and Tiffany &
Co.
To access a complete media-only copy of L2's Digital IQ
Index: Watches & Jewelry 2018, contact
johanna.azis@l2inc.com
About L2
L2 benchmarks the digital performance of over 2,200 brands
across 12 industries globally. Our
proprietary Digital IQ Index is the global standard for measuring
digital competence. We analyze 1,250 data points to provide brands
with actionable, data driven insights on their digital
performance.
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SOURCE L2 Inc