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October 2010

Ifeelgoods: Driving Sales with Facebook Credits

Facebook Credits on the way to becoming a universally accepted web currency: Ifeelgoods (“virtual goods, real commerce”) is a new service which enables e-commerce businesses to use Facebook Credits for loyalty programs, customer acquisition or special campaigns:

_ifeelgoods

"Users can earn Credits for making purchases, sharing with friends, clicking ads, signing up for email updates, or for redeeming loyalty program points."

The implementation should be relatively simple:

"Retail websites first add some simple javascript code to display messages such as “Buy this dress and get 25 Facebook Credits” or “Post to Facebook and get 3 Credits.”
Users then click a Facebook Connect button, allow the Ifeelgoods app access, and the Credits are automatically deposited in the user’s Facebook account. The integration will only be lightly branded as powered by Ifeelgoods."

Facebook Credits are today often used in Facebook games, where they can be used for example to purchase virtual goods.

In this context, the app2user program from Facebook is interesting:

"The company is part of Facebook’s app2user program which enables apps such as ShopKick and Rixty to help merchants and loyalty program operators offer their customers Facebook Credits in lieu of other rewards.
This effectively creates another payment method for Credits where users pay or create value for retailers who in turn pay Facebook."

Over and above this, Facebook Credits are in general gaining more and more significance. Just recently, Facebook has increased the number of developers who have access to Facebook Credits:

"We’ve seen a great demand for Facebook Credits since we started testing in May 2009 and expanded the beta in February this year.
Facebook Credits are now used in more than 200 games and applications on Facebook from more than 75 developers."

More infos and application areas to be found on the official Facebook Credits site.

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Originally posted in German by Marcel Weis and Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Posted by on 10/29/2010 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh on the First Year With Amazon

A good interview with Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh about their first year working under Amazon:

Amongst other things, Hsieh describes why Amazon started Endless and also why Zappos is doing much better with Amazon than with their former investors.

A short version of the interview is also available.

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Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Posted by on 10/26/2010 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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MenInvest Builds Fashion and Media House for Geeks and Gentlemen

While we are on the topic of men’s fashion, its worthwhile to glance over to France, where MenInvest has been working over a year to build an exciting pool of websites catering to the full range of fashion and trend interests from geeks to gentlemen.

AXA Private Equity got onboard with MenInvest last February:

_menlook

"MenInvest is a group carrying on business in digital, e-commerce and media activities focused on a common target: men.
This transaction is designed to accelerate MenInvest's organic and external growth over the next 18 months to make the group rapidly acquire a leading position on the men's market in Europe.
This market is booming in all the fashion and media sectors, although it remains heavily underexploited, particularly on the Internet."

The websites are a mix of media and e-commerce offerings, which utilize a high degree of mass customization elements.

Most recently online (FR) is MenLook, who will deliver purchases in the Paris region within 4 hours. Preceding MenLook was SaintSens for tailored shirts, an acquisition (FR) of MenInvest made in May. In March, MenInvest got onboard with Estime for leather goods and Timefy for watches. Menity and Menly are the associated media services.

The shopping systems deployed are mostly Prestashop, the open source alternative out of France.

AXA Private Equity acquired the shopping channel HSE24 last year (GE). In addition, they are holding a position in Glamoursales, which are operating private shopping clubs in China and Japan.

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Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Posted by on 10/22/2010 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Net-a-Porter Brings Koodos to TheOutnet and Plans Mr Porter for Men

Net-a-Porter has taken over the customer base of Koodos for their TheOutnet etail business. Net-a-Porter, one of the leading online high-end fashion retailers, was bought out (PDF) by the Swiss Richemont group last spring for $534 million.

"The Outnet has acquired Koodos’ trademarks, domain name and customer database.
It is understood that Net-a-Porter will use the database of shoppers for its own discounted etail offer The Outnet."

TheOutnet has grown to be a splendid example of a varied and exciting event shopping program which playfully employs different campaign elements:

_theoutnet1

“The Outnet regularly hosts time-limited discount shopping events where you have the opportunity to shop the sale in a thrilling environment.”
_theoutnet2
“Our regular Pop-Up sales, designer Giveaways and Going, Going, Gone sales are guaranteed to give you a "get it before it goes" buzz.”

The makeover is not just for TheOutnet. In January Net-a-Porter wants to launch Mr Porter for fashion conscious men.

And what is the founder of the insolvent Koodos now doing? Miriam Lahage, who formerly consulted for Net-a-Porter and was also long employed by TJ-Maxx, has been leading the fashion segment of eBay since the summer.

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Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

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Fashion Commerce: From the Online Fashion Week in Berlin

Posted by on 10/19/2010 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Javari: Amazon Expands Shoe Retailer To France

Unphased by the Zappos takeover last year, Amazon is pushing forward with their shoe store Javari. After Japan and England, Javari has now launched in France (via). In the US, Javari is present as Endless.com (see traffic figures).

_javari

In France, the shoe industry is getting cozy. The adversaries Spartoo and Sarenza are in a full out battle for market supremacy. And besides Javari, the French shoe retailer chain Chaussea has gone online (FRA), a mature brick and mortar player with 215 branches and revenues of 125 million euro.

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Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Posted by on 10/19/2010 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Thinking Bigger: The Segmentation of the VC World

Whether in the US (see the super angel debate) or here in Germany, the investor scene is in motion.

Seed programs like Paul Graham’s Y Combinator are increasingly encroaching into the territory of the established players (see the latest VC conspiracy theories floating around Silicon Valley). The variations of different investment models are growing.

Mark Suster has taken a look at the current situation for VCs in an in depth article. Chris Dixon as well has written on the increasing segmentation amongst investors.

In particular, there is a blurry line in the US between VCs and angel investors, as Mark Suster elaborates:

"There’s no such thing as a super angel. Either you’re an angel or you manage professional funds. Period. If you’re an angel you invest your own money and you have nobody to answer to except your spouse. And you can have ulterior motives like helping people or being involved with “cool stuff.”
If you’re investing other people’s money you’re a professional money manager. If you invest it in startups you’re a VC professional money manager. Now we can call you a seed-stage VC or a micro VC. We can even acknowledge that you might work differently than traditional VCs. But you’re not an angel."

An interesting take is his recommendation to be satisfied with less money:

"Some companies should raise less money and consider early exits – We had a discussion about whether companies should raise less money and have smaller goals for an exit.  Dave McClure argued passionately that since the overwhelming majority of exits are sub $100 million we need to readjust how much capital goes in.  Chris Sacca talked about how a $20 million exit can change a founder’s life and that shouldn’t be scoffed at.  I totally agree and have been arguing this to entrepreneurs for years."

Here is a list of insider blogs for all who want to stay up-to-date on the changing landscape of venture capital.

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Originally posted in German by Marcel Weiss, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Posted by on 10/14/2010 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Holtzbrinck Ventures Announces International Investor

It has been known for a while that Holtzbrinck Ventures has wanted to involve additional investors into their funds. Holtzbrinck Ventures is one of the most active VC firms in Germany, being involved in a wide range startups from Brands4Friends down to Zalando.

“The goal is to invest larger sums of money into individual projects and at the same time, to increase the number of investments.”
(from German article)

This week it became known that Harbour Vest Partners will come onboard with Holtzbrinck Ventures.

“The publishing house Georg von Holtzbrinck has brought a financial investor on board for its daughter company Holtzbrinck Ventures.
The American private equity firm Harbour Vest Partners intends to come onboard with the investment arm of the Stuttgart media house. A corresponding application on intent has been submitted to the Federal Cartel Office.
Holtzbrinck and Harbour Vest want to create an own fund for which both partners will hold shares.”

Holtzbrinck is following the footsteps of Hubert Burda Media, which opened up more investment capacity two years ago by using external capital to start Acton Capital Partners.

While Holtzbrinck with its Holtzbrinck Ventures was making a excellent name for itself in the past years, things have flopped for their incubator concept Holtzbrinck eLab (GE/EN).

For new and bootstrapped startups, Holtbrinck has anyways in the last two years leaned heavily on Rocket Internet who have led startups such as Zalando, 7Trends, FP Commerce, Enamora and CityDeal (now Groupon).

Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Posted by on 10/11/2010 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Confirmed: Amazon Acquires Private Shopping Club BuyVIP

Now its official: Amazon is taking over BuyVIP (for a yet unconfirmed 70 million euro).

“Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire BuyVIP.com, a fashion and lifestyle online buying community with more than six million members in countries including Spain, Germany, and Italy.
_buyvip

“BuyVIP.com offers their members an exciting selection of top fashion and lifestyle products at extraordinarily low prices,” said Greg Greeley, vice president European Retail at Amazon. 
“BuyVIP.com is an excellent complement to Amazon’s European business and will provide another unique way for Amazon customers to find and discover unique and compelling products.”

As already described, it is a bit hard to follow the logic behind this acquisition. It might have been an emergency reaction, given that more attractive takeover candidates such as Vente-Privée or the more valued Privalia were not available to Amazon.

The only rationale for BuyVIP is that – their weakness in France and Germany notwithstanding – they are relatively well placed in Europe. The takeover would make more sense if Amazon would now buy out Brands4Friends to better cover at least the German and British markets.

Amazon has been for a while now prying into the live shopping business: in 2006 they took a stake in Woot! and this past summer they took it over completely for an alleged $110 million.

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Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Posted by on 10/08/2010 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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eVenture Partners Invest in Asia with Infinity Ventures

The VC firm eVenture Capital Partners has revamped their portfolio summary and now publishes in addition to their European and North American portfolio also their Asian interests. The investment flows via their 25% stake in Infinity Venture Partners, which operates funds in Asia.

Using Infinity Venture Partners, eVC wants in particular to be active in Japan and China. Along those lines, eVC should have been twice as happy with the recent Groupon acquisitions – not only was the Russian Groupon clone Darberry an acquisition target, but also the Japanese clone Qpod. Previously, CityDeal was acquired by Groupon.

In a recent background talk in Hamburg, eVC boss Andreas Haug clarified their investment strategy and again stressed that although they work with money from the Otto Group, they are completely free and independent with their investment decisions. Startups exploit the benefits offered by the Otto Group, but there is no compulsion to look for synergies.

eVenture Capital Partners / BV Capital and other investors have recently invested $4.6 million in Ixtens, a US based SaaS provider that offers marketplaces for online retailers and media houses. They have not long ago added Stephan Uhrenbacher to the team as Entrepreneur in Residence.

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Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Posted by on 10/07/2010 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Shopping for Shopping Clubs: Privalia Trumps Brands4Friends and BuyVIP in Latest Investment Maneuvers

Within a very short time, the private shopping club business has developed into a billion dollar market. Vente-Privée plans to turnover 800 million euro this year. Here in Germany, the various players could expect to turn over 300 million euro combined.

With big business at stake, you can almost visualize the wrangling happening these past weeks and months as top tier European private shopping clubs courted the Who’s Who of the American investor scene, including online retail giant Amazon.

Amazon to take over BuyVIP for 70 million euro

According to Spanish blog reports, which are yet to be confirmed, Amazon has taken over the private shopping club BuyVIP for 70 million euro, about half of what was expected by their investors. Techcrunch has summarized the relevant Spanish newspaper reports.

Due to their several management problems, BuyVIP can’t be counted as one of the strongest players in Europe. However there aren’t many options left for Amazon after the most attractive candidate, Vente-Privée, has repeatedly expressed no interest.

Besides Vente-Privée, according to our predictions last August (German link) Spain's Privalia, France's ShowroomPrivé and Spain's BuyVIP were the three private sales clubs having the best exit-option potential. The German Brands4Friends have more-or-less propelled themselves to the sidelines in the last months.

70 million euro for BuyVIP is certainly not an ideal valuation, particularly when considering the recent valuations of Gilt and Ruelala. However, one does recognize that exit options are getting thinner. Brands4Friends had previously been valued at 100 million euro.

Private shopping club Privalia raises 70 million euro warchest for acquisitions in Europe

Privalia announced a hefty capital injection of 70 million euro yesterday. The money will be used to fund acquisitions in Europe:

"Privalia, the leading private online sales club providing value for fashion brands and consumers, is pleased to announce today a EUR70 million ($95 million) financing.
The new funding will allow Privalia to leverage its international leadership position through potential M&A activity in Europe and to consolidate its market leading position in Latin America.
_privalia


Privalia operates in the same order of magnitude (revenue-wise) as Brands4Friends, ShowroomPrivé and BuyVIP. Their goal is to reach a 2010 revenue level of 140 million euro.

The participants of the investment include some same investors as that of the US shopping club Gilt Groupe, indicating that Privalia may be a sort of European vanguard for Gilt.

In this regard, clearly BuyVIP has drawn the short straw, going for an apparently fire sale acquisition price to Amazon.

Who will be able to stand against the Vente-Privée behemoth?

The gears have been set in motion these past weeks. And the biggest winners to date are Spain’s Privalia, who have scored well with their South American strategy, as well as ShowroomPrivé, who have shown that even in France there is room for a second player. ShowroomPrivé raised 37 million euro investment (FR/EN) out of the US in August.

In contrast, the losers in this melee are Amazon and BuyVIP. If Amazon has indeed taken over BuyVIP, then both will have to live with sub-optimal solutions.

Completely on the wayside at the moment is the German Brands4Friends, who may have bet too high in this latest round of M&A poker.

The real excitment will begin if Gilt Groupe is able to pull in capital from an IPO.

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Originally posted in German as three posts (1, 2, 3) by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.

Posted by on 10/05/2010 | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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