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November 17, 2007
Agenda Setter: Vente Privée Unconventionally Successful
Every year Silicon.com does a jury-vetted list of Agenda Setters in the IT world. While this year there were a few entrepreneurs from this side of the Atlantic that made the list (see below), the selection is typically dominated by CEO's of US-based businesses.
Maybe next year, we will see the French founders of Vente Privée make the list. There is no doubt it has a trend-setting ecommerce business model, what with all the copycats in its home market, but also in the US and other parts of Europe.
At the moment, the 7 year old company is an 'order of magnitude' larger than its closest competitor, with a turnover of some €300M annually, a fact that helped it win a special jury prize at this year's Audemars Piguet Changing Times Award for entrepreneurship.
There are a lot of things that are untypical about this venture. It has seven founders, for one. They were all wholesale jobbers who decided to follow CEO Jacques Antoine Granjean's idea to put their businesses online in 2001, according to COO Xavier Court who accepted the prize on Thursday night.
Its members-only track was also unconventional. We have not confirmed it with the founders, but as we hear it, the idea behind making it a members only site, a practise that is similar to the way catalogue mail order businesses encourage customer to recommend neighbours and friends, came about so that it could authenticate new shoppers and help reduce fraud.
The company also does everything in-house from photography and video production to email marketing and logistics.
Godet Cognac On Sale. The left link will show a short video trailer pitching the product. The right link reserves your order.
It's a bit like home shopping TV, with its limited number of items and time limit on prices, combined with the user-paced aspects of online shopping. Daily emails invite inform shoppers.
The Journal Du Net has an excellent photo reportage inside Vente Privée's headquarters here to see it all in action.
Court also talked to us about how the company builds its 'brand', once again in unorthodox ways. For example, Vente Privée just launched its own glossy women's fashion title. "It is not a catalogue, it's a beauty and fashion magazine," said Court. That's the cover of magazine, Rosebuzz, on the right there.
The startup also demonstrated 'a never say die attitude', according to the jury of the Changing Times Award.
Court tells it like this: After a couple of years online, sales had not taken off the way the founders had hoped and fixed costs were causing a cash burn that had three of the seven ready to call it quits. They could be making more money doing other things.
But they were outvoted and the business stayed open. In 2004 and 2005, sales skyrocketed and they have not looked back since. It was the advent of xDSL that turned things around, according to Court.
Related stories from alarm:clock euro
eCommerce Gurus From France
Summit Partners investment in Vente Privée
Euro eCommerce Trend
Selected Agenda Setters for 2007 From Silicon.com
Rorie DevineBetfair's CTO who recently became CEO and is expected to lead the company to an IPO
Charles DunstoneCarphone Warehouse CEO
TomTom co-founders Pieter Geelen and Peter-Frans Pauwels : more than 10M units sold
BT Global CIO
The UK-based inventor of the wind up radio
Posted on November 17, 2007 03:41 PM | Posted to News And Updates | Permalink
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