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ShowroomPrivé launches permanent high-end showcase called Village
French event sales site ShowroomPrivé continues to move upmarket. After buying The Bradery in April, ShowroomPrivé, based in Saint-Denis on the outskirts of Paris, has announced on June 14 the launch of Village, a new e-store hosting a permanent selection of high-end brands at reduced prices.
With Village, ShowroomPrivé, a listed company, is keen to digitally replicate the experience customers enjoy in physical outlet villages, and has segmented its assortment in virtual ‘avenues’ dedicated to menswear, womenswear, childrenswear, designer and lifestyle labels, beauty, accessories and home decoration, showcasing the permanent range of ShowroomPrivé’s brands. Village promises plenty of discounts, though they will be less aggressive than inventory clearance promotions. Featured brands will have tools at their disposal to create content tailored to Village, both occasionally and on an ongoing basis.
“For brands, this dedicated environment is an additional channel that enables them to fully deploy their assortment and strengthen their presence within a targeted audience,” said ShowroomPrivé CEO David Dayan, underlining how the site continues to move in an upmarket direction. “After buying The Bradery, by launching Village we have reached another milestone in our strategy of becoming a benchmark for smart shopping, accelerating the digitalisation of consumer brands and promoting affordable and sustainable consumption,” added Dayan.
Village is not the first foray made by ShowroomPrivé in the marketplace arena. In November 2020, the company gave official status to its marketplace project, aimed at enabling partner brands to take advantage of ShowroomPrivé’s site traffic (said to add up to two million daily visitors) for selling their unsold inventory as well as their current collections.
The idea of creating a dedicated upmarket environment on a site covering the market’s entire pricing gamut is not new. From Alibaba’s Luxury Pavilion to its competitor Toplife by JD.com, to the Luxury Stores recently introduced in Europe by Amazon, all the major e-tailers are working to fashion more upmarket solutions for labels that are striving to water down their affordable brand status.
In 2021, ShowroomPrivé’s revenue increased by 3.8% to €723.8 million, while its sales volume was €922 million, up 3.1%. EBITDA was €48.2 million, up from the €42 million recorded in fiscal 2020. The latter, with the pandemic in full swing, had marked a “return to profitability” for ShowroomPrivé, whose revenue grew by 13.3% as lockdowns gave a boost to online shopping.
This year’s Q1 was instead marked by a 22% slump in sales, due to fewer inventory clearances and widespread supply chain disruption for fashion labels. And while stock availability improved towards the end of the quarter, the impact of the Ukraine invasion and of inflation on purchasing behaviour still needs to be assessed.
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