Friday
Jan092009
eLuxury Shut Down
Posted on 
January 9, 2009 by Ryan Willms
January 9, 2009 by Ryan Willms 
Everyone obviously knows about the recession and its consequences like the unfortunate announcement of Obedient Sons to shut down operations. Now though, "ELuxury.com, the designer e-commerce site launched in June 2000 by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, will close the retail portion of the site over the next six months." The plan is to turn the eLuxury site into one dedicated to information on the 'luxury lifestyle' because the brands they sell, now have their own web presence. This seems like a pretty terrible business move to me. Their flagship brand Louis Vuitton has more of an online presence and it's own ecommerce yes, but most of the other ones don't. When the site launched it had a pretty big editorial component to it but they realized it wasn't going to compete with the well established luxury fashion/lifestyle magazines so they shifted their focus to online shopping. What has changed now though?
via WWD
Tags : Obedient Sons, eLuxury
Obedient Sons, eLuxury 
Reader Comments (3)
Websites such as the above seem like the EASIEST way to make money... it reaches the broadest audience, has web exclusive (for the most part) items and you don't have to deal with the customer in store. Seems like a bad way to take a step back. All you have to do is have a photographer, a web programmer, and a dude to pack a box and you're set.
SHUT DOWN ELUXURY,TO ME IT WILL BE A TOTAL MESS FOR ME THATS MY ONLY WEB SITE STORE I REALLY LOVE,AND DIE FOR,AND A HUGE FUN OF ELUXURY THE BIGGEST VIP .SORRY TO HERE THAT AM REALLY CRUSH.
I couldn't agree with you more. It seems as though a lot of traditional luxury companies in both the fashion and publishing realms are ill prepared to transition to the online forums. They have yet to understand their role within it and more times that not, they respond by simply remaining stagnant, which in the web world is deadly. The future is indeed online and LVMH and the Conde Nast's of the world need to understand that communicating to this demographic requires a holistic different approach.