LUXURY IS AN EXPERIENCE, NOT A PRICE POINT
In a world where you call customer service expecting to be immediately put on hold, where you buy something and are cynically unsurprised when it breaks just after the warranty is up, where you are too often served by machines or deadeyed staff as desperate to escape as you are, luxury is knowing you aren’t just a number.
Luxury is walking into your favourite restaurant, being welcomed by name by the maître d’ and ushered to the best available table. It’s being automatically upgraded to a better room when you check into a hotel because the clerk at the desk sees you have stayed there before. Luxury is a representation of quality of care, quality of skill, quality of experience.
Consumer psychology research explains why this consistency of experience is so important to high-end luxury brands. According to a 2015 report by Albatross Global Solutions on luxury consumers, quality is the single best indicator of luxury for consumers around the world, with 86 per cent of those surveyed citing it as the most important attribute. Quality, of course, is relative. To stand for quality is to stand above the competition, not just some of the time but always. A luxury experience is specific, because of this focus on quality. You can’t be the best at what you do if you try to do everything.
Take Sotheby’s International Realty. Its distinctive blue signs are known in more than 70 countries. No matter where you are, the brand is synonymous with luxury. The home page of its website features a glittering gallery of high-end homes in New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Greece, Washington State and New York. A series of jaw-dropping photos reveals rooftop decks, magazine kitchens and grand windows with views of endless blue ocean, a private lake in the mountains, an old-world castle or Central Park.
Although many of the homes represented by Sotheby’s 20,000 brokers worldwide are high-end show homes, according to vice-president of brokerage Sacha Brosseau, there is, in fact, no minimum price for a Sotheby’s listing.
“When you list with us, we give you the white-glove experience. You don’t just get it with a $10 million home; it is the same for a $350,000 home,” he said. “It’s like walking into Tiffany’s. You see the $10,000 diamondencrusted pendant on display in the window, but you could buy a necklace for $200 and get the same iconic blue box, with the same care and attention from the sales clerk. You get the same Tiffany’s experience, regardless of how much you spend.”
In Quebec, Sotheby’s agents have brokered recordbreaking sales in many areas like Westmount, Senneville and Mont-Tremblant. But Brosseau said all Sotheby’s listings, including a West Island bungalow that recently sold for $337,000, are represented with the same care and attention to detail.
For one, it’s a rigorous process to become a Sotheby’s agent. The brokerage does not accept trainees or part-timers. All Sotheby’s agents must have a proven track record, with deep knowledge of specific neighbourhoods and a strong reputation in the areas where they work. Sotheby’s handles all the marketing, leaving brokers to focus on what they do best: selling.
According to the National Association of Realtors, 87 per cent of homebuyers use the Internet in their real estate search. Sotheby’s leverages its international reputation to draw in these websavvy real estate shoppers, going beyond just listing on Centris, Realtor.ca and the Sotheby’s website. Sotheby’s also promotes its listings to Chinese buyers on juwai. com, as well as in prestigious online publications such as wallstreetjournal.com, newyorktimes.com, jamesedition.com, ft.com, luxuryestate.com, mansionglobal.com, countrylife.co.uk, and dozens more.
Using Sotheby’s exclusive marketing platform, brokers can produce automated reports for their clients that show how and where it is being marketed and how many people have seen it. The Folio account system, launched five years ago, allows sellers to keep track of activity on their property and see links to all ads that have been used to promote the property.
“We consider ourselves to be a marketing company before a real estate company,” said Anna-Maria Retsinas, Quebec director of marketing. “We have changed the way everyone does business here.”
Sotheby’s listings are professionally photographed, with each image vetted by Retsinas’s marketing team to ensure they uphold Sotheby’s brand standards. Some are used to create high-gloss brochures that are distributed to potential buyers.
“You’ll never see a photo of a bathroom with the toilet seat up in a Sotheby’s listing,” Retsinas said. “You’ll never see a car in the driveway or recycling pails. Couch pillows are always fluffed, garden hoses tied up, covers off the barbecues. It’s the little details, but they make a world of difference.”
Luxury is having someone carefully wrap a tiny silver necklace in an iconic blue box with the same care as diamonds. It’s being asked if you’d like to have the same remarkable wine you enjoyed with your last meal. It’s being treated like you’re staying in the executive suite even if you’re staying in a standard room.
Luxury is having someone else take expert care of the little details. For more information, visit sothebysrealty.ca.