LUXURY BRANDS ONLINE REPORT

PMX Agency noted that growth in the global luxury market slowed in 2016 due to a variety of factors ranging from terrorism to Brexit. Global sales of luxury goods stood at $282 billion last year, 32 percent of which were generated by the U.S, making it the single largest luxury market, greater that China, Japan, France and Italy combined. Nearly every female age segment from Millennials to Baby Boomers over-indexes for luxury brands and luxury brand sites remain mobile-dominant with 52 percent of traffic coming from a smartphone and tablet. Google on its own accounts for 48 percent of all referrals to luxury brand sites. Social media drives 6.3 percent of website traffic to luxury brands with Instagram seeing a dramatic year-over-year surge with total followers for luxury brands doubling over the past year. Several key brands exceeded this growth, including Chanel, Dior, Gucci and Prada. The highly-visual Instagram remains the most popular social platform in terms of engagement. The report noted how across the four key social platform – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, followers took 786 million engagement actions with luxury brands in the past 12 months, dominated by Instagram, which accounted for the lion's share with 734.7 million actions, or 94 percent of the pie. Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Dolce&Gabbana have the most Instagram followers rated at over 10 million. Snapchat is also on the rise with several noteworthy brands such as Valentino, Burberry, Fendi and Michal Kors tapping into its potential. Handbags and shoes continue to be the most popular product keywords bringing consumers to luxury brand sites. Gucci is the top brand for shoes, while Michael Kors, Coach and Louis Vuitton lead in the handbags sector.