Tiffany has announced it will open a flagship store on the Champs Elysées in Paris. Image by Getty

There’s a piece in the Financial Times today that should send luxury brands leaping for their lizard (and python, and shagreen, and croc and so on).

Discussing a new study on retail, my colleagues Barney Jopson and Tim Bradshaw note that it “suggests the most effective use of retail space is selling expensive products that are occasional purchases to well-off consumers.” This is like giving candy to a baby.

After all, this is what luxury has been saying all along – it’s what Burberry just announced it was going to do in china, and François-Henri Pinault described as PPR strategy as far back as 2006. My guess is the industry take-away from this will be simple: sell less for more. But I think that may be the wrong lesson to draw. Read more