Reshaping the luxury buying experience, one customer at a time

Consumer trends can inform companies of how buyers are reacting to macroeconomic headwinds. But trends rarely affect the ultrawealthy, who have remained on a spending spree this year.

So how does a company market to customers who already have everything? The answer could be to sell them time, at least according to Antoine Tessier, CEO of duPont Registry Group, a lifestyle brand and digital marketplace for high-end automotives.

“The only thing that they don’t have is time, and we want to give them the gift of time, and this is really our mission,” Tessier said.

Cultivating community

The rituals of car shopping can be alluring, defined by opulent showrooms, sycophantic sellers, and champagne bottles. However, Tessier, who spent over 13 years studying the luxury customer at Louis Vuitton and LVMH, postulates that trading that in for speed and community is more effective. He’s betting that building a community around luxury cars will be the marketing hook that draws customers in—and keeps them buying.

“I want to welcome the customer with an experience, not because they want to buy a car, but because they bought the car. Really our experience strategy is post purchase,” Tessier told Revenue Brew.

On duPont’s marketplace, luxury vehicles are sold secondhand with a high price tag.

“If you look at the recent transactions at auctions on our marketplace, cars that were $40,000 40 years ago can reach $1 million today, and they can be transacted multiple times.” Tessier told Revenue Brew. “Because of the scarcity component in the supply, there [are many] things that our strategies [use] to make sure that we’re optimizing our revenue.”

Taking it easy

Michael Chapin, president of dupont Registry, said that while breaking the norms of the luxury buying experience is challenging, his company has built a strategy around convenience as a commodity.

“People want simplicity and ease, and there’s probably some online offline mix that lives on in perpetuity, but I don’t have to tell you this as a general consumer when Amazon revolutionized one-click checkout that there’s similar things that are that can be done still within this space,” Chapin said.

One advantage Chapin feels his company has is the duPont Registry magazine, which outlines luxury automobile trends going back decades. This arm of the business helps drive brand awareness, guiding messaging around community and experience that recent research conducted by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and duPont shows increases sales.

When car fanatics see a car they have been lusting for in a duPont’s magazine, the company is able to use that to build a pipeline to future marketplace sales.

“Our goal is to keep them in the ecosystem, to join these communities, to be a part of it, and to really double, triple down on the love that they’ve recently discovered, and show them more love that they can develop,” Chapin said.

Expert insight: luxury automobiles

Felix Stellmaszek, BCG senior partner and managing director, is an expert in the automotive and mobility sector and explained that the luxury auto space is experiencing “profound transformation.”

According to Fortune Business insights, the global luxury car market was valued at nearly $1.3 trillion in 2024. Moreover, the industry is expected to exhibit a 10% compound annual growth rate, which calculates the average annual growth rate over a period of multiple years, from 2025 to 2032.

The most alluring trend is that the resale segment is outpacing new car sales, according to Stellmaszek.

“The entry level into this luxury world, $100,000–$170,000, they’re growing about 5%–6% in the new [vehicles] side and then 6%–9% in the secondary side. Ultraluxury and hyperluxury, a little bit less so, but similar kinds of trends,” Stellmaszek told Revenue Brew.

In a market where purchases can be dictated by emotional appeal, brands that create personal customer experiences are the ones that he believes will grow in the luxury space. This includes tours or even racetrack access that can go a long way with customers who have spent hours obsessing over the vehicle they have purchased.

“The types of experiences beyond the product itself, like what really resonated in this particular space, are performance trainings, factory tours, to actually open your factory to customers and letting them experience how your vehicle is being built,” Stellmaszek said. “If you have the ability to coshape and cocreate, I think that will go an extremely long way in this type of space.”