There is an argument that Lafayette is late to market, and had no choice but to target younger buyers. Lets face it, those consumers with more money will fly to France to experience the real thing. The cooling of the market, and the resultant reduced spending on luxury may too have forced their hand to consider that their name was strong enough to support the introduction of a more cost competitive stock profile. They are in effect now competing head on with many well-known and well-established brands for less money, and risk being purely seen as a department store to which the wealthy rarely visit, not having the patients to wait in line, or suffer perceived poor service. …

The full article content is only available to Luxury Insights China subscribers.