How to Create a Luxurious Shopping Experience for Clients

There is nothing more frustrating than a bounce rate.

Customers land on your website and after just a few seconds they bounce. Or they come in your brick and mortar store and after a few seconds of insisting they are ‘just looking,’ they walk out. Or your YouTube channel has tons of subscribers but they don’t stay on the video for more than a few seconds a time.

It might not be your brand or your visuals or even the topic of your videos. It might not be the fact your site loaded slower than quicksand (but seriously maybe fix that.) You don’t have the right shopping experience because you have been listening to mainstream brands that have no idea who your clients are and what they expect.

If your clients are prestige level clients who buy at the top end of the industry, and your products and services have a high price tag, the shopping experience can’t look like Walmart. Even Walmart has a greeter so no, just adding a greeter won’t work. You will need to think about what your clients expect and then go deeper and beyond. The results can push your brand forward into wild amounts of profits and income, beyond anyone in your industry.

Setting up the prestige shopping experience takes experience and creativity depending on your industry and client. I only do private consulting around how to develop this for businesses as each touch point needs to be curated for your particular client. Book a call here and let’s chat to see how to set this up in your business.

The Shopping Experience 

Think of your brand as a storefront. Your marketing brings clients to your door, the velvet rope line holds people in the queue, and clients come in. Customers ENJOY browsing for luxury as much or more than they like buying. Browsing and shopping are essential to the client experience, especially in luxury markets.

People want time to browse by themselves without being hurried or sold to in conventional ways.  They want to be left alone to research and look around, not to be pestered by annoying salespeople. 

When you create touch points to elevate the shopping experience, clients can browse without feeling like they are being sold to. Shopping touchpoints help your clients see themselves as someone who purchases from you; their identity is now wrapped up with your brand. Customers discover your products; they investigate, shop, and buy, once their identity has shifted, now they only want to buy from you.

Shopping experiences for the MASS MARKET

The Avocado Shopping Experience to Make Guacamole

Avocados are temperamental because they are only ripe for a short time. To pick the perfect one, we stand at the bin, pick it up, and test it. The avocado needs to be ripe but not too ripe. If it's too hard, it's not ripe enough, which is bad for guacamole. If it's too soft, it's probably brown on the inside.

Getting an overripe or underripe avocado is annoying but not life-changing. You might have to reduce the amount of guacamole at the gathering and make Uncle Ned upset because he didn’t get any, but there are no dire consequences. (Ned will get over it.) Buying the wrong avocado isn’t a big deal: even though avocados are more expensive than they used to be, they aren’t $30,000 each. 

The avocado shopping experience is straightforward. I need guacamole. I go to the store, find the avocado section in the fresh fruit area, squeeze, squeeze, put the ones in my basket I want, and bang, boom, I am done. It's a simple shopping experience. I don’t need to go through multiple steps to be convinced to buy or trust the friendly avocado, even though some seemingly friendly avocados still end up in the bin. 

Let’s look at a different a higher-priced item but still the shopping experience is mass-market and blah.

Years ago, we went shopping for a small speedboat with a $30,000 price tag. We shopped at a mass market, department store for outdoor equipment. Under the sign that said “boat sales” sat some official looking offices with the lights off and no one around.

We looked for any information, a brochure, something we could take home. We had questions!

What other options are there?

Did they have information on the model in the photo on the display?

Could we get a price break if we buy with cash? 

We waited for 45 minutes for someone to come to help. My husband got mad that no one ever came to ask us if we had questions, so we left and never returned. The store lost a sale. 

We never bought a boat; we rent one or charter if we want to go on the water. They missed the sale because the shopping experience was so bad. 

The ideal PRESTIGE shopping experience.

How to sell a yacht. A luxury client shopping experience. 

Imagine this. 

Let’s say you are in the market for a yacht and hire a broker to help you locate your vessel

Immediately, you begin an elevated shopping experience. You get a call and a text: “We understand you are in the market for a yacht, and we are here to take extraordinary care of you. We will show you several vessels and wish to make your shopping day special. It isn’t every day you get to pick your perfect yacht.”

They discover your needs and ask about the features, budget, and power you want in your boat. If you don’t know the possible features, they have guidebooks, videos, or interactive software to narrow your choices. 

They might also give you a guide on caring for the boat. Or a list of the best marinas and a personal introduction to the yacht club. 

A concierge contacts you the week before the shopping day and asks about your food preference. They provide a sit-down lunch on the day of the shopping excursion. On the day of, they pick you up in a black car, and you sip mimosas on the way. The broker greets you, and suddenly, you are touring around and treated like you are the most important person in the world, while looking at yachts fitting your budget and qualifications. Back in the car, your broker pulls out a cooler; inside are cold washcloths. You feel refreshed as you use the cloth on your face and hands. There are muffins, snacks, and cold pineapples and strawberries.  

You tour several more yachts and finally head to lunch on a multi-million dollar yacht in a scenic harbor.  

At lunch, Captain Ocean joins you. He's circumnavigated the globe with his family, and he regales you with stories about the weather in the South China Sea, why sails are traditionally dyed red, the history of Buck Islands, and how to navigate by the stars. 

Captain Ocean makes sailing feel romantic, adventurous, and slightly dangerous. You’re hooked and can’t wait to buy your ship and create romantic adventures. 

Every interaction with this brokerage is a step toward the sale, and each part is essential.

You are sold.

You are getting a boat today; you won’t wait. When you finish lunch with Captain Ocean, you think, “Which yacht is best for us?” instead of “Should we buy a yacht or not?”

You saw yourself as someone who owns a yacht and the broker created this feeling with the shopping experience. Yacht owners sip mimosas, eat off charcuterie boards in Lincoln Town Cars, and have glorious exotic adventures, and now, that person is you. The shopping experience changed your identity.

You now identify as a yacht owner. 

Creating the right prestige shopping experience for your brand. 

Think about the last time you bought something expensive.

Did they include elevated touchpoints for you, like our yacht broker? If you purchased a $25,000, $250,000, or $1.5 million program, product, or service, did you have a similarly elevated experience? 

Let's say your client is considering buying something expensive from you: a luxury vacation, a stay at your boutique hotel with a concierge, private jet fractional ownership, a 100k-a-year luxury membership, or coaching or consulting. Perhaps your client is trying to decide between you and some other offer. We could also say this person is considering buying something else, like a home, a new kitchen, or software for their business. 

If your shopping experience is done well, your client won't consider anyone else. You will have changed their identity to someone who buys what you offer. 

Use the yacht brokerage example; what would make a good shopping experience for your clients? 

Questions to ask yourself, your clients, or your team.

How do you get them to your store, and does it feel good to experience? 

What about once they arrive at the storefront (or online)? Are they receiving something to help them move from the outside of the store to browsing on the inside? 

For instance, if you are a luxury hotel, could you get your spa to record a stress-free serenity meditation? Is there a sommelier who could give their community a unique way to tell if a wine is from Spain, France, Italy, or Napa? 

When they start the browsing process, what does that look like? 

What do your emails look like? How do your videos look and sound? 

Do you have blogs, and are they in line with what people want to hear? 

Do you have a custom chat bot to answer personalized questions on your website?

What is your sales page or booking page like? 

How are your proposals and contracts? What about your events? 

What are the conversations like? 

Your brand needs to be better and look different from anyone else. The best clients want excellent, trustworthy, authoritative marketing, a beautiful shopping process, easy transitions through your program, and precise results. They want to achieve a dream, be seen and valued, belong, and aspire to become the best version of their future selves. 

They want to be enchanted in the buying process and experience emotions they don’t experience anywhere else. 

How to Use Enchantment to Sell to Prestige Clients.

Enchantment is what our clients take away from their first experience. Chanel has a mini movie and sample fragrances. Dior does this with a tiny charm. This first touch point is crucial because it becomes an unforgettable souvenir and cements you in clients' minds as different, elevated, and someone who cares about them. Everyone gives clients gifts, but few people and brands provide a gift when someone enters your email list. 

How to implement: 

If you have 20 people opening every email and coming to everything you do, ask for their physical address and send them an unforgettable souvenir. This works well for corporate people, but you cannot send popcorn, flowers, or anything ordinary. Since popcorn is consumable once it is gone so is the reminder of who sent the popcorn. Flowers wilt away, and your when your client tosses them in the bin, the reminder of you is gone too. So, think long-term and personalized gifts that last. If you don’t know what would be best for your specific niche and how to do this, we work with clients on this strategy. You can book a call here and find out how this works.

A handwritten note has a nominal cost, but most brands won’t send them. Think through your top 20 people and send them a handwritten note and a small personalized gift. If they have a pet, send the pet something, too. 

Building emotional capital. 

Emotional capital means your clients want to associate themselves with you. 

When clients identify as buyers of your brand, they collect your offers like they collect Chanel bags. They say, “I can't wait for the next offer; I can't wait for the next retreat. What else do you have coming that I need?”

You can also add emotions and sensory experiences to everything you do. Don’t offer an opt-in; offer an emotional opt-in. It is not an email. It's an emotional and sensory email. Emotional videos. Emotional podcasts. Emotional, social posts. Make sure you know what emotions you want them to feel and why. Everything you do and everyone you associate with affects the perception of your brand, for good or bad. 

Why I don’t host events in Birmingham, Baltimore, Nashville, or Louisville.

Those cities have lovely people and lovely areas but my best clients don’t want to attend events there. My clients are people motivated by adventure, achievement, and a little power. They want to become a person who flies to London to attend an event, even when they are from the USA. These clients aren’t concerned with convenience, they desire to realize the dream they have for themselves in the future. Their identity is wrapped up in the destination for the event. If I did a retreat in Mexico, it is likely they would not attend. They don’t want to go to Bali or Costa Rica or Cabo San Lucas or Cancun or Jamaica.

I don’t have anything against those destinations but I KNOW my clients are not people who go to retreats in Costa Rica. They have done that before. Their identity has changed to someone who doesn’t attend events that the mass market might attend.

I understand how my clients feel about attending a Nashville or Dallas event; they might go because it is convenient, but they aren’t excited about the city.  The most sophisticated clients in my audience desire to “be someone” who attends events in Dubai, Capri, Miami, London, Paris, New York City, Gold Coast Australia, Maldives, or LA. They will be much more likely to attend if I host in a city they want to be associated with.

If you make note of all the partnerships you have now, and any podcast guesting or any other associations where clients see you positioned with that brand, make sure all the brand associations fit your current luxury position. 

My LONG and thoroughly enjoyable shopping experience: Viva Omega 

I browsed the Omega store in Vegas ten times in the span of three years before I bought my watch. The boutique is right across from the Bellagio Hotel Conservatory. Each time we were in Vegas, we grabbed breakfast at a lovely restaurant, lingered over coffee, and then followed the short, elegant marble pathway to the Omega store. 

I tried on several models: the butterfly, Seamaster, and Constellation. Every choice seemed better than the last. I loved the buying process. I was thinking and browsing and dreaming about which one was perfect for me. The Omega associates gave me space and plenty of time to decide: they never pressured me to buy. Finally, on my eleventh visit, *three years later, I was ready! I purchased my Constellation watch AND tried to talk myself out of the diamond version, but my husband refused to let me settle. (I got the diamond one.)

I love my watch but also enjoyed every part of my customer journey; I was thrilled with the “chase.” Now, I am a loyal Omega customer and am looking and planning for which watch I will buy next. 

Risk/REWARD levels 

We constantly weigh risk and reward, gain and loss. If your program is expensive, clients must decide if the reward is worth the risk. 

Clients will try to calculate the perceived value and want to understand whether it is worth it. We absolutely hate to lose. Clients don’t want to lose money, time, or energy. 

We've bought services and regretted the purchase. We missed out on buying things we wish we’d bought! Clients will no longer be at risk, and their brains always look for anything that reads inauthentic or incongruent. They will abandon the store at the first sign of a detail going wrong.  

If you know your shopping experience could use some work and you examine the process, now you have to see the holes. And we desperately do not want to see those holes. Attention to detail makes you feel bad because there are so many details to fix. 

The first level of consistency is just doing the same thing repeatedly. The second level of consistency is refining all the little details. Anyone can be persistent for two years and achieve early success, but what about the precision it takes to get to a million, two million, or thirty million? The little things add up, and details take refinement and time. 

 What do your clients want, and what are you willing to do?

And are you willing to do the things that other people won't do? 

To wrap this up, we must create the right shopping experience to charge the high ticket price points. Luxury-level brands are experts in the shopping and buying experience. They know their client's inner desires and evoke emotions to create a buying state. Putting together the right shopping experience is key.

Are you ready to elevate the shopping experience for your clients? Book a call to see how we can help.