With copious capital and a risky but stringent expansion strategy, the Gilt Groupe has developed in the last 12 months into the most dangerous competitor to Vente-Privée.
Gilt boss Susan Lyne made good on all of her announcements at the Shop.org conference and has launched a series of Gilt spin-off websites:
Beside Gilt, there is now Gilt Fuse, Gilt Man (including wine club) and Jetsetter. In preparation still is Gilt Home. Gilt Groupe is the first private shopping club company to consistently apply a decentralized approach and so quickly occupy strategically important market segments.
In an earlier IWB column (GE/EN), Exciting Commerce’s Jochen Krisch already highlighted several reasons why Gilt has the best chances of success.
While Vente-Privée balks at going overseas and Brands4Friends hasn’t yet gotten past Austria (see press release, GE/EN), Gilt has already secured Gilt Japan and has announced expansion in other countries (not France).
Even if Techcrunch doesn’t tire of spreading rumours about Amazon or eBay having concrete interest in Vente-Privée, the better takeover candidate by far would rather be the Gilt Groupe - the more so while Vente-Privée is so connected with the personalities of its founders.
Aside from that, such rumours are being used by VCs who want to quickly see results from their private sales club investments.
Related posts:
- The Shop Exchange: $40 Million for US Shopping Club Gilt Groupe
- GSI Grabs RueLaLa/SmartBargains for $350 Million
- Three US Online Shopping Clubs Want To Exceed $100 Million
Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.
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