The Luxury Institute discusses the current state of the consumer spending, brand status for luxury retailers and wealth management firms, luxury cruise line customer experience, dining habits of wealthy consumers, wealthy homebuyers outlook on vacation homes, wealthy Japanese consumers opinion of luxury brands and excellence in luxury leadership. Pulling on their resources to tap into the minds of high net-worth individuals, The Luxury Institute is able to track and evaluate the trends and opinions of today’s most highly coveted consumers.
Highlights from The Wealth Report include:
- Consumer confidence is back up to levels last seen in September before Lehman Bros.
imploded and the stock market tanked, but luxury shoppers are still buying far less than
they were last year. Compared with May 2008, receipts for large national retailers
dropped 4.6 percent last month at stores opened at least a year, with the luxury segment
continuing to lag the broader group. Saks and Neiman Marcus retain their dubious
distinctions as the poorest high-end performers, posting respective same store sales
declines of 26.6 percent and 23.3 percent in May. Nordstrom's sales dropped 13.1
percent, Dillard's 12 percent. - Shares of luxury retailers have held their stock market gains, as investors overlook the
current funk in luxury and focus on better times ahead. Three months into an explosive
stock rally, retailers like Nordstrom and Tiffany are still up 75 percent from March lows;
Saks has more than doubled, and Dillard's shares are higher by 170 percent. We could be
in for a few more months of harsh headlines, but later in the year, comparable sales
numbers for luxury retailers will plateau and then start to look quite impressive due to the
weak comparison months beginning with October and November of 2008. - Wealthy U.S. shoppers ranked the Neiman Marcus subsidiary first among eight brands in the Luxury Institute’s 2009 Luxury Brand Status Index (LBSI) luxury retail survey. The consumers ranked the brands on four primary attributes: consistent superior quality, perception of uniqueness and exclusivity, entire customer experience and use by people who are admired and respected.
- The Luxury Institute surveyed wealthy American consumers (average household income of $336,000, average net-worth of $2.2 million) about their dining habits during the recession as compared to last year. 72% have eaten out the same number of nights per week, 82% are spending the same or more dining out, 52% say they eat out once or twice a week and 23% eat out at least three times a week.
- In the 2009 Luxury Customer Experience Index (LCEI) for top-ranked cruise lines, consumers ranked Crystal Cruises as the best. Fans of Crystal rave about its “excellent service, fabulous food, ideal destinations, good passenger to crew ratio and excellent amenities.”
Get the Wealth Report here.
