LVMH Americas CTO on the bold “connection” strategy that will define luxury retail

In 17 years working in luxury retail, Antoine Tessier, VP and CTO at LVMH Americas, has seen it all. With long-term stints at Louis Vuitton as CTO, project leader, and director of retail, Tessier casually self-identifies as someone who is “very luxurious.” So when he first met Scott Swanson, CEO of Bonder, a location-based retail communication app, in Miami last September, Tessier was delighted to find they seemed to have so much in common.

Tessier said their “hour and a half”-long conversation drew upon Tessier’s extensive experience, which led to him signing up for his first outside board role at Bonder. Swanson appointed the retail-tech veteran to advise on retailer-customer relationships, as well as provide “large-scale technical direction,” according to Bonder.

• Bonder’s app allows users to connect with retailers (and other users) in their local area and acts as a “direct tool” for customers to find and purchase products, as well as be able to message in-store employees.
• The company is targeting bigger retailers like Best Buy.

High-end link-ups: For Tessier, connection is the “key pillar” to the future of both luxury and retail. And the connection has only been heightened with the advent of virtual and augmented reality during the pandemic. From Balenciaga to Gucci, the metaverse is a hit with some of the biggest luxury brands and it’s a trend that doesn’t seem to be dying down. “We see it now today with the metaverse hype, which is, at the end of the day, in a few years, the internet will be 3D,” Tessier told Retail Brew. In the same vein is social commerce, which has found significant success in China, but is relatively lagging behind in the US. But with Gen Z gravitating toward shopping on both TikTok and Instagram, now more than ever, the US is catching up, Tessier said.

• Per e-marketer, US social commerce sales rose by 35.8% to $36.62 billion in 2021, about one-tenth the size of China’s—$351.65 billion in 2021.

Face to face: While the pandemic may have accelerated digitization of brands, not much has changed in luxury, per Tessier: The luxury customer remains the same, only a bit more acquainted with new technologies. The pandemic has been for “stakeholders and executives within a company to finally be convinced that technology should be at the heart of that strategy,” Tessier said. But the connection doesn’t need to end here: While customers flocking to Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok have proven their appetite for video-based content, luxury brands that want to stay relevant to customers will need to invest in technology. For now, Tessier is confident that brands will follow that path and is counting on the likes of Bonder to relay that message to retailers across the board.—JS