Movado Says It’s Time For Cross-Border eCommerce

The luxury goods space is ramping up its digital presence for holiday sales. Case in point: Movado. The upscale watch and jewelry company announced on Tuesday (Oct. 13) that it will partner with cross-border eCommerce company eShopWorld (ESW) to give Movado shoppers a localized, online shopping experience.

ESW bills itself as a company that simplifies the cross-border eCommerce process by removing the friction involved with selling and shipping products internationally. From Movado’s side, the partnership will help prepare Movado, as well as its MVMT brand, to meet early holiday demand.

“We’re committed to protecting the luxury experience Movado watch shoppers have come to expect and to expanding our brand awareness worldwide,” said Behzad Soltani, executive vice president, commercial president and CTO of Movado Group. “By partnering with ESW, we’re ensuring we provide the seamless local shopping experience that our customers deserve, while also gaining more flexibility in terms of controlling our global inventory.”

ESW’s solution optimizes each element in the shopping journey, from local payments and checkout to delivery and returns. Earlier this year, Movado integrated two of its owned brand websites — its flagship Movado brand as well as its lower-priced MVMT line — into the eShopWorld platform.

“Looking at our direct-to-consumer websites, we could see that visitors were visiting us from other countries,” Soltani said. “But even with a broad international presence, serving global consumers can be complicated and expensive.”

Movado has also been adding to its product lines to reach more of the younger consumers who shop online. It has launched a connected watch series, introduced new designs from influential designers, and even reached out to Meghan Markle and Prince Harry to enhance its product stable.

Movado is hardly the only brand making moves online recently. David Yurman also announced an eCommerce logistics project, this one with the software solutions platform BOSS Logics, which enabled the brand to bring its Fall Market Week online for the first time. The new platform, called Together, will reconfigure the way brands and retailers conduct appointments and sell.

“The platform goes beyond video conferencing, screen-sharing and other piecemeal solutions to more closely replicate an in-person sales meeting, giving retailers a state-of-the-art way to remotely present and sell products, both safely and efficiently,” said a statement from the two companies. “Together’s unique solution for streaming video and high-resolution images allows users to collaborate alongside the meeting host and interact with multiple products on one screen.”

At the recent Fall Market Week, retailers were presented with David Yurman’s spring 2021 collections via virtual meetings through the video chat function and viewed collections in a branded virtual showroom, reflecting the format of past Market Weeks. The tool also allows retailers to virtually view products and stream media at the same time.

According to luxury market news source Luxe Digital, some traditional luxury brands aren’t ready to make the leap to fully selling online. It points to Chanel as an example. “Known for its reluctance and extreme caution toward eCommerce, French luxury house Chanel has recently announced a strategic partnership with global luxury eCommerce platform FarFetch to develop new digital initiatives in an attempt to make its physical stores attractive to the well-connected, younger, affluent consumers,” says Luxe.