Chanel and Farfetch Partner to Change How We Shop for Luxury Fashion
[MUSIC]
Chanel is taking a big step into the digital age. The fashion house announced that it has partnered with e-commerce platform Farfetch to create a range of digital initiatives that they hope will create a brand new and unparalleled customer experience both online and offline.
While Farfetch has focused on making high-end fashion available online, Chanel still has no plans to sell its ready-to-wear collection or its handbags outside online. Instead, the partnership will revolve around enhancing the in-store experience by using technology to cater to its customer's needs.
“We are not starting to sell Chanel on the Farfetch marketplace — I want to be very clear on that,” Bruno Pavlovsky, Chanel’s president of fashion, explained to Business of Fashion. “Our position on e-commerce is the same. We want to connect our customers with our product and our boutiques are the best way to do so. We are very consistent in our strategy, but we are using Farfetch’s know-how to accelerate this.”
RELATED: GASP! Chanel Bags on Sale. Need We Say More?
"We strongly believe that digital will never replace the feeling of being in a fitting room and trying on a Chanel piece," Pavlovsky said in a statement. "We are confident that Farfetch's innovative technology will help us develop an even more outstanding customer journey by combining a great e-service offering with a genuine Chanel boutique experience.”
Their partnership will hopefully help reinvent how we shop in stores by using Augmented Reality to tailor a customer's experience as they shop in the boutique. The technology will record and remember a shopper's preferences and can help them find pieces that they may not have initially considered. Other features include an RFID-enabled clothing rack that will be able to detect which products a customer is browsing and add those pieces to a wishlist, as well as easier payment methods similar to Apple Pay.
The mutli-year partnership is still in its early stages. The main focus to start will be the Augmented Reality concept, but it's just the tip of the iceberg for Farfetch and Chanel. As the personalization experience is accelerated we can expect more in terms of potential apps and other innovations.
