Elie Saab links with UK's Astound and Shopify to launch new, improved D2C site

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Dec 6, 2021

Luxury label Elie Saab has launched a new direct-to-consumer (D2C) transactional site, offering “a content-rich, immersive brand experience that recreates the VIP in-store customer journey virtually”.

The company has been seeking to expand its retail offer beyond its five physical stores and 160 other physical stockists globally “as it seeks to digitally engage existing customers and attract a new generation of digital-first luxury shoppers”. It didn't previously have a transactional website so the launch is a key step for the business.

It linked with UK specialist digital agency Astound Commerce to migrate its online platform to Shopify Plus and said the new site "will enable the brand to curate the highly personalised shopping journeys its discerning customers have come to expect, as well as bringing new VIP services and experiences online by integrating brand-led content and storytelling into the site”.

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They added to the Shopify Plus functionality with key technology partner integrations to “recreate the high-touch, in-store customer experience online”. These partners include stockist.co, which allows customers to view and search inventory across all stockists. There’s also Calendly, which gives customers instant access to appointment booking. And it said that further integrations with the enterprise resource planning app Navision, and tax compliance vendor Avalara, “ensure a seamless checkout and shipping experience for international customers”. 

The pandemic has helped to drive a shift that was already happening in luxury. High-spending consumers are now comfortable with e-shopping and expect the kind of curated experiences that they can get in luxe stores during their online shopping journey as well. This shift has also been helped by younger luxury consumers being digital natives and having high expectations of the online experience.

McKinsey has estimated that online luxury sales will more than triple by 2025, rising to $91 billion globally as those Millennial and Gen Z shoppers become even more important to the sector.

So it’s understandable that the firm wanted to improve its existing web experience with a more feature-rich new site. 

The label worked with Astound to build the site, taking in digital strategy, creative services, UX, innovation and technical solutions. They developed the digital brand vision for the new website “to ensure [it] is an authentic manifesto for the brand, with each content asset closely aligned with brand values and tone of voice”.

The project also incorporated communications strategies across four key shopper touchpoints — the site itself, email, Instagram and Facebook — “ensuring consistency of key messages and brand voice that supports Elie Saab’s aspirations, as well as driving engagement and commercial opportunity”.

Company CEO Elie Saab Jr said: “We want to give our customers more from their digital experiences when shopping with us. We want to give them that same ‘Elie Saab’ experience that they would be used to receiving in-store digitally, and that meant optimising every touchpoint of the online buying journey.  Astound had the strategic vision to translate our brand values online, delivering a strong content strategy and tone of voice, coupled with the technical know-how to get us there seamlessly as we re-platformed.”