Purchasing management in the luxury industry: organization and practices

Traditional supply chain models were developed mainly for non-luxury companies and find very little correspondence in the field of luxury, which is considered here as a business super-area including heterogeneous enterprises, belonging to different sectors, which have in common customers characterized by the “need for luxury”. The objective of this paper is to investigate, through a multiple case-study research, peculiar purchasing and supply management practices put in place by luxury firms and to provide a classification of the most recurring approaches.