Santa's Helper: How To Sell Luxury Online

Net-a-Porter has devised an ingenious method to drive men to its site. And, no, it is not a collection of Paul Smith ties. They have a feature called Santa's Helper that creates a custom video -- narrated by a sexy blonde -- that women can email to their partners to tell them what they'd like for Christmas. It is a perfect example of how luxury should work online. It's funny, beautifully styled and, most importantly, hits busy men while they're at work. It launched last Thursday and Natalie at Net-a-Porter told me that already 20,000 people have visited the Santa's Helper page. Many are women who just want to check it out and end up buying for themselves. For the die-hard fashionistas out there, the helper is in a red Roland Mouret moon dress exclusive to Net-a-Porter and Christian Louboutin shoes.

The one question which was not addressed at the Luxury Briefing Web 2.0 conference last week was "why is luxury so late to go online." I suspect it is partly fear of the cost and fear that the internet will somehow tarnish their brand. Most brand sites vary from pathetic to plain. Gucci has one of the best sites, but even they could, and should, do much more with it. Take a look at Santa's Helper and you'll see what I mean.