Millennials Transforming the Luxury Fashion Industry: An exploratory research about enabling a multidirectional service encounter online

Abstract: There is a growing apparent conflict within the luxury fashion industry in regards to the service encounter. This as luxury fashion brands are reluctant to digital change in their service practices while there is a growing expectation among the ‘new’ luxury consumer of millennials for brands to adapt to more interactive and digital practices. As millennials are becoming the generation of greater influential force of consumption for luxury fashion brands, managers and researchers call for service innovation to meet this conflict by developing the current traditional practices within their service encounter activities to align with the expectations of millennial consumers. The suggestion is to innovate the current Unidirectional Approach and develop a Multidirectional Approach allowing a digitally-enabled multi-interactive service encounter. However, previous research discusses this approach in relation to in-store service encounters. This research expands this research field by exploring the multidirectional approach in an online context, leading to the stated research questions: “How will millennial consumers perceive the service encounter of luxury fashion brands if enabling a multidirectional approach online?”. The research is a qualitative research method whereby the researchers have conducted eight semi-structured interviews which derived the empirical material. Through a coding process and thematic analysis, there were six themes that emerged which enabled the researchers to answer the research question and provide a conclusion. These themes were: Expected Online Service, Online Support, Sharing Consumer Experiences, Detailed Product Information, Optional Contact Functions and Online Brand Interaction. The findings and conclusion of this research provide managers and researchers an understanding of how the service encounter by luxury fashion brands can meet the digital and interactive expectations of millennial consumers through a multidirectional approach online.