How The Luxury Industry is Allying Itself With New Merchants

It seems the wounds from eLuxury are now healed. Exciting now is seeing the directions the luxury brand industry is now turning to with their online strategies, their waning hope with traditional commerce models, and the increasing alliance between their labels and new e-commerce partners.

Three of the biggest: the Richemont, PPR and LVMH Groups have attracted some attention with their online initiatives/ambitions. They are taking very different strategic routes.

Richemont had already shelled out a half a billion to acquire Net-a-Porter in 2010, which brought along their successful online fashion websites Net-a-Porter and Mr Porter. Richemont has also invested in other businesses such as Portero.

_net-a-porter

The PPR Group, controlling big brands such as Gucci have invested in The Fancy. They further want to work together with Yoox (German link), which has in recent years built up a high degree of competence and credibility. Both companies now have a memorandum of understanding with each other to enable cooperative online initiatives using selected PPR brands.

The LVMH Group, managing amongst others Louis Vuitton and Moet Hennessy, have just recently secured shares in Moda Operandi (German link) and is therefore taking the most exciting route to growing their online operations:

_modaoperandi

The investment in Moda Operandi ("Tomorrow's Fashion Today") is strategically smart. For one, the experience with eLuxury has shown how thorny traditional online retailing can be. On the other hand, it is pretty clear by now the kind of potential that campaign oriented shopping models can have, particularly in the fashion segment:

_fashionentwicklungseit2000
From 0 to … Euro – The revenue growth of the strongest online fashion retailers since 2000

Moda Operandi is in this e-commerce segment further advanced than even Vente-Privée.

Related posts:

The Fancy: PPR’s Investment in the Tumblr of Shopping
Shoescribe: Yoox reinvents (online) shoe retail
The Shop Exchange: Louis Vuitton Closes eLuxury End of June
The Untapped Online Potential of the European Fashion Industry