La recherche en gestion de la force de vente concernant les produits du luxe en est à ses prémices. Compte tenu du poids accru des marques de luxe et des perspectives futures très prometteuses, il importe d’enrichir la recherche et de comprendre les leviers de ventes des produits de luxe. L’industrie du luxe dispose de deux voies d’accès aux consommateurs finaux. D’une part, un réseau spécialisé / dédié contrôlé directement par les fabricants du luxe et d’autre part, des boutiques généralistes multi-marques (en dehors du contrôle des fabricants du luxe). Une part importante des ventes de produits de luxe est réalisée dans ces boutiques non dédiées au luxe où de multiples marques de luxe coexistent et côtoient d’autres marques aux divers statuts. Cette thèse s’attache à expliquer le niveau d’effort que la force de vente de ces boutiques généralistes va dédier aux marques de luxe. Cette thèse repose sur une vaste littérature sur la dissonance cognitive et la théorie de l’identité sociale / The domain of sales management research for luxury products is still nascent. With the persistent growth of luxury brands and ongoing optimistic projections for the future, it is imperative to take a step forward in this field and understand the triggers that enable luxury sales. The personal luxury goods industry operates via two routes to market – “retail” (directly controlled by luxury brand manufacturers) and “wholesale” (outside of luxury brand manufacturer’s control). A significant amount of sales happen via the “wholesale” route, in multi-brand stores where a mix of luxury brands co-exists with non-luxury brands. Drawing from a literature on cognitive dissonance and social identity theory, using multilevel methods, this dissertation raises the question of how to predict salespeople’s effort allocation towards a focal luxury brand in this multi-brand selling environment

<p>Through the years customer orientation is an area of marketing that has received much attention. One of the key aspects of customer orientation is the “ability of the salespeople to help their customers”. There has been research on how salesperson’s behavior influences customer orientation. However, previous research has been conducted on the business unit level. At the moment there is no research done on how a salesperson’s individual behavior affects a company’s overall customer orientation. Therefore, this dissertation will try to fill the research gap on how salesperson’s individual behavior affects overall customer orientation.The study is performed on the three major electronic retail stores in the Swedish market. Twelve types of behaviors were selected and were tested with the mystery shopper method and observations of customers in the stores. Two other behaviors of salespeople were discovered. The results show that many of the behaviors described in theories do apply to salesperson’s individual behavior. However, there are some behaviors that are more common than others. The conclusion is that even though there are some common salespeople behaviors, it is very individual how salespeople behave towards customers.</p>

Through the years customer orientation is an area of marketing that has received much attention. One of the key aspects of customer orientation is the “ability of the salespeople to help their customers”. There has been research on how salesperson’s behavior influences customer orientation. However, previous research has been conducted on the business unit level. At the moment there is no research done on how a salesperson’s individual behavior affects a company’s overall customer orientation. Therefore, this dissertation will try to fill the research gap on how salesperson’s individual behavior affects overall customer orientation.The study is performed on the three major electronic retail stores in the Swedish market. Twelve types of behaviors were selected and were tested with the mystery shopper method and observations of customers in the stores. Two other behaviors of salespeople were discovered. The results show that many of the behaviors described in theories do apply to salesperson’s individual behavior. However, there are some behaviors that are more common than others. The conclusion is that even though there are some common salespeople behaviors, it is very individual how salespeople behave towards customers.