The backbone of any customer experience management is the ability to understand customers’ needs, wants and lifestyles (Schmidt, 2003). In a post Covid era where consumer behaviours have changed forever, luxury brands need to step up to woe consumers back to their brick-and-mortar stores. For example, the Dior historical and global store at the Avenue Montaigne reopened after two years of renovations to offer a unique customer experience. This iconic store now offers not only the full range of products one can buy, but also an art gallery, a café, a 3-Michelin stars restaurant and an exclusive suite at the price of 25,000 Euros per night. The centrepiece of this new store is the huge glass staircase overlooked by a wall of mannequins dressed in various Dior dresses. It is meant to be “instagramable” for those who need to show off their visit to their virtual followers. The key question one may ask is whether all these innovations and investments in building an exceptional flagship store provide a better customer experience?

This research analyzes the relationship between backpackers´online activities related to brands by identifying benefits (functional and experiential) that they seek and the impact of those benefits on the eWom generated during their travel journey.

The luxury industry worldwide, and in China in particular, has been going through some major shake-ups in the last few years, such as the impact of anti-corruption campaign in China since 2012, massive increase of Chinese out-bound tourists travelling abroad for shopping due to price advantages as compared to mainland China prices, changing customer preferences and low loyalty towards luxury brands, and heightened customer knowledge of luxury, to name a few. These changes have a direct impact on customers’ behavior and experience in luxury retail stores and ultimately the level of expectation and satisfaction they have with luxury brands. This paper aims to shed some light on this topic by focusing specially on Chinese luxury customers’ perspectives. Companies have considered customer experience as one of important ways to obtain and sustain competitive advantages. Zomerdijk and Voss (2009) maintained that customer experience is a holistic concept that encompasses every aspect of a company’s offering. However, it is unclear which service elements offered by company create the most compelling contexts. Chinese luxury customers represent one-third of the total personal luxury goods market by the end of 2016 according to Bain & Co (2016). Therefore, no luxury brand can afford to ignore Chinese customers and their level of satisfaction with their brands. Paradoxically, from 2012 to 2015, the luxury personal goods market in China has decreased by 1% or 2% each year as compared to the previous years. This was due to many factors, and one of them was “poor customer experience in retail stores” according to our study. This deceleration of the market in China has prompted many luxury brands to create new customer experiences that could increase satisfaction (such as made-to-order services) in order to retain existing customers and to gain new ones. The research questions of this paper are: what type of services do Chinese customers expect from luxury brands? What are the levels of satisfaction Chinese customers have with luxury brands abroad and in China? How can luxury bands improve their service experience offers to satisfy Chinese customers? In order to answer these questions, we carried out a longitudinal study over 4 years, from 2012 to 2015 with Chinese luxury customers. A Chinese luxury customer is defined as someone who has bought a genuine luxury product over the last 6 months, whether in China or abroad, for themselves or for someone else. Each year we interviewed 120 customers who were chosen randomly in the streets of Shanghai, nearby luxury malls. The interviews were carried out either in English (if they are comfortable of speaking in English) or in Mandarin (by a native speaker). The interviews lasted on average 30 minutes each. The questions are mostly open-ended questions such as: “Could you please tell us your best or worst experience in a luxury retail store, in China or abroad? And why is it the best or worst?”. The interviews were manually recorded by a second interviewer present at that time. The data were then compiled and analyzed for this paper. The findings of the study were somehow unexpected such as: 1- Chinese luxury customers expect very simple and basic services in luxury retail stores, such as a sincere smile and a warm welcome, or sales employees do not judge them based on their looks and appearances. 2- Retail staff should have a better and up-to-date product knowledge so they can answer simple questions about the products when asked. 3- Retail staff should be able to give good advice to customer when they are undecided, and not try push only sales. Managerial implications for luxury brands are many. However, the most important one by far is “to go back to the basics of retail customer experience” by selecting and training the right employees for the job.

With a staggering 35% of the total French population using Facebook representing 23.4 Million users (1), of which 72% using on their mobile phones or tablets (2), and with at least half of them daily (3), it is no brainer to understand the increasingly important role of social media in the daily life of French consumers. It is foreseeable that French consumers are influenced by, and can influence other consumers, on their fashion purchase decisions. Using published sources of information; this paper aims to highlight the four main trends of social media that have an impact on fashion marketing in France. The first trend is about instant messaging from consumers to consumers. It is how consumers frequently and easily talk one to another about brands, products, opinions, likes and dislikes, etc. hence influencing any potential purchase decision of self or others. The second trend is about interactions between consumers and brands via social media such as Facebook or Twitter. Brands can communicate directly to consumers and consumers directly to brands, hence it is very time efficient for brands to know what consumers think, like or dislike about their products or marketing communications. For consumers, it is also satisfying to be able to voice one’s opinion and may contribute to the future success, or failure, of new products. The third trend is about brands collaborating with online communities to co-create new products. In this instant, brands will let online consumers express their desires, for example through mood boards, and then create a few samples of new products based on those desires. Online consumers can then vote for their preferred ones that will later be produced and sold online to the consumers. Such example can be found from a partnership between “La Boutonniere” website (which collects information from online communities) and “Anne Studio” (a woman fashion brand) (4). This technique can ensure a higher successful rate of new product launches. The fourth trend is about disguised advertising campaigns on social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter or YouTube. These platforms are offering to conceive and design online marketing communication campaigns for brands that fit with their target consumers’ environments on those same platforms. The aim is to communicate to the right audience without being intrusive and to blend in. These campaigns often mention the words “sponsored by…” to reveal their sources. In summary, these four social media trends illustrate the increasing important of social media in brand communications and brand building, not only from brand-to-consumer-to-brand, but also from consumer-to-consumer-to-consumer.

To meet the demands for use in extremely abrasive and corrosive environments, a new material was developed. The VeKo25Cr distinguishes itself through specifically selected amounts of carbon and carbide forming elements such as Cr, Mo, V, W and Nb. The alloy is based on a Fe matrix. The strength after heat treatment and the wear and corrosion properties are compared to those of other materials. VeKo25Cr can be combined with easy-to-process materials such that the difficult handling is minimized to those places on the piece most subjected to operational wear.

The Committee has, for the 9th consecutive year, compiled statistics of embryos collected and transferred worldwide. Geographically, all regions have participated in the survey; however, there are still some places where it has been impossible to retrieve such data (particularly in Asia). The statistics, therefore, are partially underestimated. By contrast, in other areas, the system has proven to be more efficient than before, particularly in North and South America. This has resulted in the present report, which gives a somewhat more satisfactory picture of the current situation of the ET industry. For the second year, it has also been possible to collect data for several species other than cattle. In cattle, the number of in vivo-derived embryos collected and transferred has once again increased with more than half a million embryos trans-ferred in 1999(520,712), a new record. The number of bovine in vitro-produced embryos has remained stable this year as compared with the previous year(approximately 30,000 embryos transferred). However, there are still teams that have not Yet reported their data. More than 10,000 embryos in each of the ovine and caprine species and close to 2,000 cervid embryos were reported transferred in 1999. Some 500 embryos of the equine species and a few thousand in the porcine and rabbit species have also been transferred in 1999. It is concluded that the ET industry continues to be very active, and, in many species, it encompasses a larger segment of the livestock population overall, which is to the farmer s benefit.