For the second consecutive year, Neiman Marcus' Bergdorf Goodman subsidiary earns the top ranking among eight luxury retailers in the 2011 Luxury Consumer Experience Index survey of wealthy shoppers conducted by the Luxury Institute. Respondents rated retailers on store personnel, the shopping environment and whether the overall experience resulted in complete satisfaction.
Brooks Brothers earns the second highest overall LCEI score but ranks first for completely meeting wealthy customers' needs. Nordstrom receives the third highest LCEI score, and remains the most popular luxury shopping destination, visited by 38 percent of wealthy shoppers in the past 12 months. It is also earns the highest loyalty, with 98 percent of shoppers planning to come back.
“The top-tier brands of luxury with resources are now focused on becoming customer-centric global enterprises,” says Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, a New York-based market research firm specializing on high net-worth consumers, which does the LCEI survey. “The only way to achieve this is to create establish a self-reinforcing culture of service to your associates and your customers. The work is extremely hard but the financial returns can be dramatic.”
Survey participants had minimum household income of $150,000, with average income of $271,000 and average net worth of $2.4 million.