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July 04 2008
Comment – Private Sales
Private sales are this week’s buzzword and hopefully by this time next year we’ll have forgotten all about them
I was reading through a post on the very readable Snow Patrol blog recently about Private event retailing, or private sales or Vente Privee as they are otherwise known, and it got me thinking.
The post by Snow Patrols’ Sarah C outlined all of the different benefits of a private sale – they basically allow manufacturers and retailers to sell off excess stock without the “indignity” of using eBay – and the two different approaches to online private sales that retailers can take: Snow Patrol outlined these approaches as
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.
There are also various options for how you run them. Koodos allows customers to sign up for free and choose which brand sales they want to join. Vente Privee is much more exclusive - you have to be invited to join.
Snow Patrol argued that private sales offered an alternative to eBay for clearing excess stock because unlike eBay “private sales can be made much more engaging and personal, especially if you're selling a range of different brands.”
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?
Private Sales work well in France where RRPs are quite rigidly enforced, and where the only way around the RRP stricture is to sell at auction, hence the rise of eBay and private sales (Vente Privee). But will this really work in the UK? Where the market largely drives the price – yes there are still some cartels but they’re disappearing. Isn’t it just quicker and simpler to whack the merchandise on eBay and use it’s huge advertising power and it’s guaranteed market of hundreds of millions, rather than messing around with “exclusive sales?”
Also one of the problems with Private Sales and auctions is the wait involved is now just not acceptable, it might work for some things where you can be bothered to wait until the sale or auction is over but most customers I know want the products NOW.
by Marcus Austin (Web Editor)
Secret Sales
On your current page you have a Peter Werth sale, on Saturday I walked into PW in Brighton and surprise surprise there’s a sale on, with 50-70% off. I bought a jacket for £40 (50 % off rrp of £80), and I just looked on the web with Google and here it is for http://www.mandmdirect.com/ProductDetail.asp?LID=FR1&ProductCatalogue=PV325 £12.99 Why would I bother with a private sale? If I want cheap, then it’s there already.
I had a look at the PW stuff on your the site - great ecommerce system btw the pics are excellent - but I had to register first to see anything which is not a great start, and If I wanted to order anything from you, I’d need to wait an unspecified time for delivery, the site quotes “You will be informed of the delivery period during the checkout process and an order should take approximately 5 - 7 working days to be delivered after the sale has finished.” Isn’t that just too many barriers?
marcus
www.secretsales.com
The private sales model allows the featured products to continually change, to provide customers with new and exciting brands every week, a differentiated point of interest and an opportunity to engage with the brands on a more personal level. Vente-Privee has nailed this perfectly.
In addition fashion brands, and particularly high-end labels, are very cautious about where they move their clearance stock; primarily because over-exposure of their products at discounted prices can harm a brand's integrity and exclusivity. A password protected private sales site provides a controlled environment for associated brands to do so comfortably.
Following your comment about our Peter Werth sale and the high-street equivalent, I'm sure you'll agree that there are only 2 clear periods in which there are sales in retail - Dec/Jan and June/July. The private sales model brings customers sales of exclusive brands 365 days a year.
Moving forward, we will be giving clearer information about our expected delivery dates and we agree there's still a lot of web 2.0 standards to consider before the concept is truly effective in the UK.
All the barriers add to the exclusivity and so far (!) online shoppers are warming to private sales. Let's see where the evolution of ecommerce and private sales takes us over the next couple of years. In the meantime, please come and check our Peter Werth, True Religion, Puma, K-Swiss, Diesel, Adidas, Designer Sunglasses sales and many more at up to 80% off, all year round on www.secretsales.com!
http://www.vente-privee.com/VP4/Login/IntlMap.aspx
These websites will face tough challenges in the UK that probably did not pose as great a problem in France, Spain and Italy. Two point seem to be the most relevant. First, discount designer sales on the continent are rare. Legally a store in France can only hold a sale twice a year - after Christmas and early summer. In the UK - cheap designer goods are available 7 days a week 365 days a year. Second, recruiting new members will pose a challenge. UK internet users are seasoned, savy, and much less likely to provide their email address and personal details to an unknown company, for fear of Spam or even identity fraud.
I think if private sale etailers such as vente-privee.com, the largest such site, can overcome these obstacles by smart marketing and maintaining a catalogue of highly desirable brands (to differentiate themselves from primark, topshop, tk maxx etc) then this could become the next big thing in the UK and eventually even the US.
Changes in retail is good for private sales
We certainly agree that the UK audience expect 'instant gratification', and currently one of our biggest challenges is educating customers about the delay in receiving their orders, but this is the only way to guarantee products at such great prices.
With that said, we expect fierce competition will only leave the few stronger players controlling the UK market as has happened in France.
Secretsales.com (www.secretsales.com) was the first true online private sales company in the UK and has established strong relations with a number of high profile brands. Only through excellent and consistent performance has the Secret Sales team been able to negotiate prices which can transfer savings of up to 80% off the retail price. We're looking forward to the seeing how the online fashion market changes in this new and exciting phase of retail.