At The Mark, a luxury hotel stay is not complete without some shopping

When someone splurges on a luxury hotel, it may be for a variety of reasons: utmost comfort, top-notch service, great restaurants and sometimes even shopping. Well, shopping may not be the priority, but hospitality groups have realized retail plays an essential part in building a spectacular luxury experience.

Over at Manhattan’s The Mark hotel on the Upper East Side, it is a core part of the historic hotel’s strategy, general manager Etienne Haro, told Retail Brew.

Its premier retail outlet, Le Shop, is available online and features a range of monogrammed merchandise such as candles, apparel, perfumes, bathrobes, baseball caps, and even dog sweaters. The items are created exclusively in partnership with luxury retailers, including Lingua Franca for apparel, Frédéric Malle for scent, and La Bottega for its bathroom products, which per Haro are made with certain specifications in mind. “The idea behind them was to make…the healthiest [product] with minimal chemicals…It is very neutral, in terms of scent, but also in terms of the components,” Haro said.

While its merchandise shop is mostly online and doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar location on site, guests of the hotel also have access to a book in their rooms featuring the items. “I would say 50% of the sales are done by in-house guests buying these retail items on site but we don’t have a shop per se,” Haro explained.

However, that doesn’t mean The Mark hasn’t brought its retail business into the physical realm. The hotel typically depends on live activations—some permanent and some temporary—to bring the experiences to life.

Take The Mark’s shoeshine service, for instance. Located on the first floor of the hotel, the service is offered free of charge to guests but is also open to any New Yorker who wants to step in to get their shoes polished. The service that has been active since 2020 is offered in partnership with iconic men’s shoes brand John Lobb.

“We really tried to rethink how in 2020 [our guests and New Yorkers] want their shoes to be polished in terms of physical space in terms of interaction with the shoe specialist we have on site, and in terms of brand exposure, and product as well,” Haro said.

A whopping 70% of the shoeshine service’s clients come from outside the hotel, as opposed to the 30% who are hotel guests,, which in a way has been helpful to the hotel in acquiring new potential customers.

But that’s not all: The hotel has also previously done limited but long-term activations with Swarovski and more recently with PopUp Bagels to promote its on-site restaurant, Caviar Kaspia. The weekend-only activation that ran last year allowed customers to purchase an everything bagel with plain cream cheese and smoked salmon, in addition to 20 grams of Baeri Caviar.

“One thing we always feel very excited about is to create what we call these high-low [experiences],” Haro explained. “So taking simple elements of gastronomy or simple elements of popular culture but giving them [that] lavish touch of The Mark and creating a luxury activation out of them.” Owing to the success of the activation, the hotel ultimately ended up integrating the dish into its menu, he said.

And while it plans on even more activations and brand partnerships for 2024, Haro said The Mark will continue on its twofold retail strategy.

“As a brand, we try to develop these products, not only to merely sell them or to develop the business, the idea really for us is to access the home of a consumer, or if there are not many hotels who have this power,” he said. “And this power is one of the most incredible opportunities of a hotel, because where guests would only stay a certain number of nights—or once in their life, when they come to New York—but having the possibility to be full time in the home of someone as a brand exposure is specifically is a real privilege, it is a real chance.”

He added that its candles and its pet products surprisingly have made repeat customers out of a lot of visitors and has in fact helped solidify its reputation as a “dog-friendly hotel.”

Ultimately, whatever the product—whether it’s a soap, shower gel, or scent—Haro said The Mark’s retail business has been a definite point of differentiation for the hotel in a city filled with luxury hotels, as the lines between retail and hospitality continue to blur.

“A partnership [between hospitality and retail brands] is more than just a tangible product you would sell in a retail store,” Haro said. “There’s also a real exchange of expertise, and a real sense of observation between this world in getting their customer experiences better.”