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The Future of Retail will be Mostly In-Store: LVMH CFO to CNBC

One of the world’s biggest luxury brands believes the online offering is just “a complement to the physical experience

diamond world news service

While the world seems to believe that E-commerce is the way ahead, luxury behemoth LVMH believes that physical stores will be the future of retail, in an interview with CNBC.

“We see the future being two things: being mostly retail stores, because the client experience in a retail store cannot be matched easily online. As of today, I mean, no one has found the sort of miracle formula that would enable clients to enjoy as much online,” Jean Jacques Guiony, chief financial officer at LVMH, told CNBC.

“The second point is also to enrich this experience with online content,” he added.

The pandemic has certainly pushed retailers to up their online game, and has driven shoppers to place orders online with more ease. However, as countries are opening up across the globe, customers have been craving to step out, feel the products, try it on and experience the whole shopping shenanigan.

So, according to Guinoy, the online offering is just “a complement to the physical experience.”

“They get a lot of information, but they come to the store because the store experience is something that cannot be matched on the internet,” he told CNBC.

 “I don’t know whether we can talk about roaring 20s … the analogy one century after makes me a little bit doubtful, but anyway, I don’t know whether we can talk about that. We can definitely talk about the fact that the business is doing well with most of the client base, be it in Europe, be it in Asia,” Guiony said. “All in all, frankly, we cannot complain.”

LVMH last year completed the acquisition of Tiffany’s, the jewelry brand, in a $15.8 billion deal.

“The integration of Tiffany is not a six-month job, it’s something that will last for a number of quarters and the objective is not just to integrate, is to develop the business up to the level that we think the quality of the brand could generate, so it is a long-term job,” he added.

With inputs from CNBC. See the original interview here


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