Shopping luxury on Amazon to become the new normal, says Saks exec

Speaking on the main stage alongside Authentic Brands Group founder and chief executive Jamie Salter at WRC at London’s Hilton hotel on Park Lane earlier today, Saks Global executive chair Richard Baker discussed the luxury department store’s latest partnerships.

He named Amazon, Authentic Brands and Salesforce as the brand’s latest partners, which it is working with to drive future growth.

He said Saks is working towards building “the world’s greatest luxury ecosystem” and is utilising its new partnerships in Amazon, Authentic Group and Salesforce to do so.

“We recently launched Saks as a walled garden on Amazon, which we’ve been working with Amazon on for six years to do,” he said.

“The idea was to create a place on Amazon where the walls were high enough that when you shopped at Saks on Amazon you would only see the assortment available at Saks and no low-priced items. Our customers, all these tremendous amount of customers on Amazon can shop Saks.

“Amazon is building for us walled gardens in India, Japan, Great Britain, Europe and the Middle East and when we sit here year in five years, luxury on Amazon is going to be the most natural thing you could ever imagine because they have the most eloquent execution and the most reach of anyone in the world online.

“The luxury consumer wants the best of everything and that means how they interact online.”

Speaking of the pair’s joint venture, Salter called the partnership with Saks Global “critical” moving forward.

He added: “When we look at brands, what’s really important for us is working with our licensees and with our retailers to make sure that they can actually make the right margin. If you look at what the business model is today, margin is everything.”