American online media is starting now to exposé the European shopping club phenomenon which now beginning to get a foothold in the US market. The shopping concept is growing in importance in the US, whereby in Europe there are dozens of such “Vente-Privée” (private sales, member-only shopping club) services in countries like France, Italy, Spain or Germany.
Several US media companies are now simultaneously reporting on the member-only shopping clubs on the web. One example: ABC.com is currently airing an introductory video report, where they explain how internet users can get in on the designer fashion sales.
"To score a deal on coveted designer goods you no longer have to battle the crowds, at least not in person. Luxury items without the luxury price tag are just a click away. Online shopping clubs like Ideeli.com, RueLaLa.com, and Gilt.com are slashing prices on designer clothing and accessories and selling them through their members-only websites."
NBC also recently released an article on the US shopping clubs ("Sample Sales have gone online"). The post delivers a first time overview of all the active US clubs, although new starter TheTopSecret is missing from the list.
"Traditionally, VIPs rely on word of mouth to gain access to exclusive sale events. These happenings often occur in a back alley, without signage, and well after closing hours. Now, thanks to the Internet, there is no need to peek down darkened streets."
While the big online media players are focusing on explanatory introductions for consumers, the e-commerce bloggers are going one step further.
For example, B2B blog Snow Patrol have identified two e-commerce strategies that brand-name companies can use to profit from the shopping club trend.
"1. Depending on your product, you can use one of the growing number of online private sale services - Vente Privee is arguably the most famous of all of these in Europe but more seem to be springing up.
2. Set up private sales as part of your own website - Koodos offers a fairly simple private sales service, for example."
The comparison to Koodos.com is a bit weak though, because although they offer deals on designer products, all offerings – including pricing – are accessible to the public. So Koodos.com isn’t really a private shopping club, and has therefore up till now only been of peripheral interest to us.
The Snow Patrol posting isn’t the only evidence of minor misunderstandings. To see that some e-commerce experts haven’t really understood the member-only principle, just take a look at a current posting on Internet Retailing:
"I’d go as far as agreeing that Private Sales are an alternative to eBay but really I don’t buy it, and I’m sure that neither will anyone else. Why as a retailer would you want to do a private sale on a site that’s unknown, and numbers its visitors in hundreds, rather than hundreds of millions?
Yes there’s the chance to get a higher price than you would on eBay, but is the extra work involved in inviting people to the sale and the cost of publicising the sale really worth that effort? Lets’ not forget this is old stock, or it’s overstock, isn’t it better to just get rid of it and concentrate on your current stock?"
Here we see that Internet Retailing sees private shopping clubs only as an extra revenue stream, to be used to clear out old or overstock products as quickly and as cost effectively as possible. Therefore the comparison to eBay.
But, private shopping clubs are for brand-name companies an alternative to traditional sales methods which are intended to move out-of-season product to selected customers, in order to avoid price competition with its own retail distribution network.
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Originally posted in German by Stephan Randler, translated by Jason Soo.
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