Online purchases have become incredibly
easy. Much easier than having to walk into a store and locate the item, only to find the retailer has sold out of your size. I've become more impatient with physical stores as search technology
continues to improve. Not only can you find more selections online because retailers don't want to house slower-moving merchandise, but searching for a specific product simply means entering a keyword
or descriptive term to return relevant items.
It appears I'm not the only consumer who feels this way. Luxury brands experienced 31% of visits from search, compared with 27% for
Apparel & Accessories sites -- although some still lack a paid-search strategy, according to a report published by PM Digital on Tuesday.
Among the findings in Trend Report: Luxury and Designer Brands Online -- which analyzes the state of luxury e-tail and predicts
how emerging digital platforms and social media trends will impact the industry -- shoes and accessories continue to drive online and mobile shopping, as well as buying direct from luxury
brands.
Google took the No. 1 search engine referral spot in August for luxury brands, with 25.11% market share, followed by Yahoo at 3.69%. Bing at 2.20%. AOL at 0.57%, and Ask
at 0.35%.
Search term data broken into component keywords reveal that "shoes," "handbags" and "accessories" drive more search traffic for luxury brands than for the broader Apparel
category. Non-brand individual keywords for shoes drove 4.14% of search clicks and 37% of organic, followed by handbags at 3.05% and 25%, outlet at 2.78% and 55%, and shirts at 1.87% and 69%,
respectively.
The ten largest luxury brands captured nearly 90% of online market share, based on total visits to 42 luxury brand sites such as Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, and Gucci, studied
for this report.
Shoes, handbags and accessories drove more search clicks for luxury brands than apparel. Shirts top the clothing keyword list, driven by Ralph Lauren's clicks from "polo
shirts," followed by dresses.
Influence from consumers sharing thoughts on social media sites will continue to impact shoppers. Social media accounts for nearly 10% of traffic to the luxury
category.
No surprise that Facebook sent the most referrals -- 7.12% -- to luxury brand Web sites among all the social sites in August. YouTube was next with 1.71%
market share, followed by Twitter with 0.15%, Yelp at 0.10%, and Tumblr at 0.06%.
Interestingly, Prada tops YouTube, but not Facebook or Twitter. PM Digital's report points to
an unauthorized Prada Facebook page with more "Likes" than major brands like YSL, Hermes, and Alexander McQueen. As for Facebook, Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton may have the most-visited Web sites,
but Burberry, Gucci and Dior have the largest audiences.
Much of the data in this report, excluding data primarily gathered by PM Digital, has been sourced from Experian Hitwise.