Even as pure play e-commerce sites bend backwards to offer deep discounts, some brands have been keeping away from the action, refusing to mark down their products.

Luxury and bridge-to-luxury brands such as Celio, Swarovski and Zegna are willing to jump onto the e-commerce bandwagon, but on their own terms. These brands feel that discounting would erode their premium image among consumers.

Calling the shots “We should be in a position to control our prices so there will be no third-party sites. There are plans to start online transactions under our own site like we do worldwide, but there will be no discounts. Prices will be similar to our brick-and-mortar outlets,” says Sukanya Dutta Roy, MD, Consumer Goods Business, Swarovski India.

Being a bridge-to-luxury crystal brand, Swarovski cannot risk being a discounted brand. Its managers feel the brand should not be seen on pure play e-commerce sites.

Reliance Brands, too, has decided to stay away from selling most if its luxury brands on third-party Websites. “Mainstream consumers do not shop from luxury sites. We have limited e-commerce operations to just two of our brands like Quicksilver and Steve Madden. We have not yet taken a decision to bring the rest of our portfolio of brands on the e-commerce platform” says Darshan Mehta, CEO, Reliance Brands.

None of Reliance Brands’ iconic brands such as Timberland, Diesel, Ermenegildo Zegna and Paul & Shark are available on any Indian e-commerce sites as of now.

Given their premium offering, luxury brands insist that they do not like the idea of being treated like commodities. However, there are some international brands present on e-commerce sites. They do not have a choice, and are not allowed to go it alone because of the laws governing single-brand retail.

“We resort to third-party online sites to sell some of our products. We have to be FDI approved to start our own e-commerce operations,” explains Rajiv Nair, CEO, Celio Future Fashions. Though the brand is present on some leading Websites, Nair says: “Ideally, we would like to bring down discounts to a minimum. Once we have our own site, it will reflect the prices are offered at our brick-and-mortar stores.”

Touch and feel Says Anjana Sharma, COO and Fashion Director, Stylista, a fashion portal: “Luxury brands are about experience, customisation, touch and feel… unlike the rest of the brands, which prefer to go online to get volumes.

Incidentally, most brands having their own e-commerce portals prefer to have similar prices as their offline counterparts. As Nair says: “Even the website belonging to Madura Garments has similar prices as their brick-and-mortar stores.”

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