Don’t let their million-dollar attitude snub you when you walk into your neighbourhood luxury store. And take it easy if you catch them slyly sizing up the leather of your shoes. With their slick pomaded hair and restrained smiles, these twenty somethings are trained to do that – apart from selling their season’s quota of snobbery. But beyond just serenading flashy Louis Vuitton trunks and Cartier pendants, do these peddlers of luxury really walk the tall talk? It’s worth a dekko.

Stanley Gabriel, who works at a Mont Blanc boutique in Pune, flaunts a Rs 1.7 lakh sports-collection watch on his wrist by the Germany-based maker of writing instruments, watches and accessories. Two Meisterstück Classic pens priced at Rs 19,800 and Rs 11,000 respectively are tucked snugly into the breast pocket of his suit. Ask him and he smiles. “I haven’t bought them. These are given to me by my company to make a statement,” he says.

To him, luxury is someone splurging more than Rs 3 lakh on his company’s products. But in hindsight, it is also perhaps the Mont Blanc wallet and cardholder that he bought with his own salary. “Twice a year we get an allowance of Rs 7,000 to spend on office uniforms,” Gabriel adds.

There are many Gabriels manning the high streets of luxury across the country. To the ordinary shopper, these young men and women perhaps represent the faces of the holy brands they represent. From the tiniest movement in a Jaeger-LeCoultre watch to the most delicate line on a Lladro porcelain figurine – it’s almost taken for granted that they have it all on their fingertips. But in India, truth can be wicked.

Twenty-four-year-old Sakshi Rohtagi is a graduate in apparel design – and a sales representative at Swiss watchmaker Vacheron Constantin’s Emporio store. “Luxury is decorative and not functional,” she says. “It’s about quality, fineness and craftsmanship that premium brands don’t offer.” But for a person who sells timepieces that cost nearly Rs 10-15 lakh, Rohtagi, surprisingly, has not undergone any product training. “Till now, I have not received any training from Vacheron Constantin apart from attending a three-day workshop with another luxury brand, Chopard. But we are regularly educated on launches,” she says, sounding almost convinced.

Like Rohtagi, a large number of luxury sales professionals in the country are of the opinion that they could do with more in-depth product orientation. With well-travelled shoppers chanting unanimously that God is in the details, pushing luxury across the counter is not enough anymore. Says 32-year-old Kapil Moses, a Versace store manager: “Our customers want to be treated like guests, and they ensure that our knowledge of each collection is thorough. It is something beyond just providing the right ambience and the product.” A graduate, Moses started his career as a trainee staff in Pizza Corner in 2001. After hopping to Pizza Hut and Barista Coffee Company he joined fashion brand Esprit as a senior sales executive four years ago. When quizzed about fashion trends, he was quick to point out that the collection of each season usually arrives six months late in India. And that he couldn’t have got by simply browsing through brochures!

Brochure marketing can be dangerous. For instance, while trying to sell an Amerigo Vespucci Limited Edition pen by Florence-based pen maker Visconti, a salesman at a multi-brand luxury pen store in the capital proudly proclaimed that Vespucci is the explorer who discovered America. But the fact is that the continents of North and South America are generally believed to have derived their name from the feminised Latin version of this Italian explorer’s first name, Amerigo. Okay, so to err is human, even the real discoverer of America, Columbus, did it. But Columbus wasn’t selling reputation in a foreign country!

Domestic partners of international luxury brands have a readymade answer for not investing in manpower training and skill upgrades. Hinesh Kotecha, boutique manager at the Ethos store in Mumbai, explains: “When we recruit we look at two levels – experienced people for senior ranks in the stores, and people from the hospitality and airlines industries for sales positions.” He points out that the store manager’s role is crucial. “Ninety per cent of customers do not make purchases on their first visit. It is the store manager’s responsibility to build a strong relationship with customers so that they can make them visit again,” he adds. Ethos deals with a number of luxury brands such as Rolex, Breguet, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Carl F Bucherer, and Omega.

This rationale perhaps also explains the discrepancy in salaries between those of managers and sales persons at luxury stores. While someone at the level of a sales executive would be drawing a salary of around Rs 20,000 per month, a store manager could make between Rs 6 lakh and Rs 20 lakh per year. So, it doesn’t come as a complete shocker that while managers at luxury boutiques can think of indulging themselves, sales executives are left high and dry with distant dreams and a solitary notion that luxury is only for the elite.

For instance, with a postgraduate degree in retail management, 23-year-old Mayank Gupta, a senior sales executive at a Just Cavalli store in Emporio, feels that people who buy luxury are super rich. This is not necessarily true. In contrast, Burberry’s sales manager at its Emporio store, Meera Kaul, an MBA with 10 years of experience in the retail industry, travels to London twice a year, and not surprisingly, sometimes does not hesitate to pamper herself with the simple pleasures of ‘super-rich’ luxury.

But brands like Cartier and Salvatore Ferragamo seem to spend a little more time on their frontline staff. In other words, these brands claim to be a little more discerning when it comes to recruitment and training. Mohammad Rizvi, senior sales associate at Cartier, has a history of selling jewellery, including a 10-year stint with Damas Jewellery in Dubai. He says that the sales force at French jeweller-watchmaker’s store is given proper induction training apart from regular updates on latest products and future display plans. Rizvi wears a Tissot watch and writes with a Mont Blanc pen.

Similarly, Salvatore Ferragamo’s regional director, Southeast Asia and India, Prasanna Bhaskar says that in addition to extensive training and performance-based visits to its headquarters, the Florence-based luxury fashion company encourages its staff to travel and spend on luxury. “Such involvement makes the employees feel like an integral part of this world of luxury,” Bhaskar says. Of about 25 employees in India, the company has so far sent only three employees in three years to Florence.

And according to Sachin Rai, brand manager of Lladro, a Spanish manufacturer of high quality porcelain figurines, even Lladro has started sending its employees to the headquarters on the basis of performance, though on-floor experience still remains an integral part of training.

But while the headcount of the salespersons of high-end brands going abroad for exposure is still a needle in a haystack, the concept of training, which is crucial to the reputation of brands, still seems to be a luxury, waiting to be sold.

john.sarkar@mydigitalfc.com