A Classification of Luxury Fashion Brands’ E-commerce Sites

The aim of this study was to analyze e-commerce sites of luxury fashion brands in order to provide insights on how to enhance online site quality. For the research, forty-eight components of thirty-one luxury fashion brands' e-commerce sites were investigated during October 2013. For the analysis of clustering e-commerce site components and segmenting e-commerce sites of luxury brands, a hierarchical cluster analysis was applied through using the Ward’s method and squared Euclidian distance for binary data. Further, Fisher’s exact test was applied in order to distinguish three groups of characteristics in the luxury e-commerce sites. These analyses were carried out by SPSS 21. The result indicated that the components of e-commerce sites were grouped into three categories: basic elements, additional elements and elements of building brand identity. These components were categorized by whether their functions were basic and essential or additional and advanced. The other norm of categorization was related to brand identity. Furthermore, the luxury brands' e-commerce sites were segmented into three groups: a group of endeavoring to promote goods, a group of undistinguished performance, and a group of endeavoring to intensify brand identity. In this segmentation, brand identity or promotional aspects were decisive. Overall, luxury brands were trying to convey their traditional strength through their e-commerce sites. In order to achieve this purpose, brand identity or promotional aspects played an important role.