From the opening, the tone is set. “We decided to work only half days… 12 hours a day.” The entrepreneur describes a daily routine with no fixed framework, punctuated by non-stop ideas, constant exchanges with his wife—“our extraordinary board meeting in the car”—and personal discipline, like that half-hour cycle every morning, between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., “whatever the weather”.
Robert Goeres’ 
This logic of transformation is reflected in his role in the development of rue Philippe II. When it arrived in the mid-2000s, the thoroughfare was far from being today’s luxury showcase. Today, it lines up the likes of Dior, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Gucci, Cartier and Christian Louboutin.
For Robert Goeres, this transformation is not the result of a public plan, but of an entrepreneurial dynamic. He recounts a seminal scene: one Friday evening, with an Austrian trainee, he began to drill holes in the walls of buildings to put up Christmas decorations, without waiting for all the formal authorisations. “Monday morning, there was a beautiful decoration.”
Behind the anecdote, a method: take action, create a movement, get others involved. He sums up this approach in three principles. “The first is work. […] The second is creativity. […] And the third is teamwork.” He adds that creativity is often born of a lack of resources, which forces people to invent rather than execute.
To the taste of espresso
At the heart of his speech, however, is another concept: customer experience. He clearly dissociates it from luxury as such. “I’m convinced that it has nothing to do with luxury, but that it’s practical and will make a difference.” To illustrate his point, he recounts an experience he had in a Swisscom shop in Switzerland. After forgetting his wallet, he went into a shop to buy an adapter. A sales assistant shook his hand, directed him to a colleague and then offered him the product. “I say, ‘What do I owe you?’ He says, ‘It’s the service, it’s fine’.” This scene became a benchmark for him. If a large group can create such a quality of service, then a family business must go even further.
[The scent, the touch, the smell…] On my computer screen, I don’t experience that.
In luxury, he believes this experience is down to the details. He mentions “the scent”, “the touch”, “the smell”, “the taste of the espresso”. All elements that are impossible to reproduce online. “I don’t experience that on my computer screen. In his view, this approach also explains the resilience of high-end physical retailing in the face of e-commerce. The product is not enough: it’s the moment experienced in the shop that creates the value.
On the state of the Luxembourg market, Robert Goeres takes a nuanced view. He believes that the sector is doing well, supported by a dense network of SMEs and family businesses. But he points to one specific feature: the absence of “peaks” of extreme consumption, as in Paris, London or New York. “We have a nice high average”, he says, but not those customers capable of “blowing” very large amounts in a weekend.
The reality on the ground
His experience in Knokke also illustrates the gaps between strategy and reality. When he opened a shop on the Belgian coast, he thought he would be capturing Luxembourg holidaymakers. In the end, this clientele represented “less than the promille”. The shop works mainly with Belgians, as well as German, Dutch and French customers. A lesson in the limitations of overly theoretical business plans.
You’re not going to tell me that I need to hire a manager to count toilet rolls.
When asked about the family business, Robert Goeres defends a demanding but effective model. He stresses the need to organise succession and recognise the value of each generation. He also refers to models observed at Patek Philippe or in Japan, where a single person takes over the company from each generation.
He goes further by describing an internal organisation without a manager in one of his structures, inspired in particular by the Gore-Tex model. Responsibilities are distributed according to skills, right up to highly operational functions. “You’re not going to tell me I need to hire a manager to count toilet rolls,” he quips.
The watch, that work of art
Finally, on the question of the meaning of luxury, Robert Goeres rejects the purely utilitarian argument. What is the point of a €20,000 or €200,000 watch when a smartphone can tell you the time? His answer is clear: “There are lots of things we do that we don’t need. He compares the watch object to a work of art or a personal pleasure. He also stresses the emotional dimension of the purchase. Some customers, he explains, come back to the boutique not to buy immediately, but to experience a moment. “She could pay straight away but she likes to come in, have an espresso and a chat.”
We’re creators of heroes.
In this logic, the retailer becomes something other than a salesman. “We are creators of heroes,” he asserts, referring to the customer who leaves with an orange Hermès bag or a green Rolex bag and becomes, for a moment, the hero of his own story.
On the waiting lists for certain models, particularly at Rolex, he recalls the structural constraints of the sector. Swiss watchmaking accounts for around 2% of global volumes but 60% of value. Houses like Rolex and Patek Philippe produce in-house, without massive subcontracting, and with limited growth. As a result, demand far outstrips supply. “For one piece, we have 100 requests,” he sums up. And even if production were doubled, the frustration would remain.
Throughout the interview, Robert Goeres outlines a vision of luxury rooted in reality: a balance between tradition and adaptation, product and experience, discipline and opportunity. In a changing environment, he defends physical retailing as capable of remaining relevant provided it creates links, detail and memories.
