Pureplay Internet Firms Are 'Finished', Says Vente-Privee Boss

The boss at one of France’s biggest internet retailers has called an end to the first phase of global e-commerce growth and said pureplay retailers must now prepare to embrace the multichannel world.

Jacques-Antoine Granjon, founder and CEO at Paris-based fashion etailer Vente-Privee.com said that pure internet retailers, including Asos, need to focus on the best ways to connect with shoppers and not cling to the past.

‘Now is the end of the first part of this revolution. In the first place it was a tool but now it is back to what you sell. For me it is the end of pureplayers. They are finished.

'The future is multichannel and cross-channel. E-commerce is just a new distribution channel,' he said, Speaking at the World Retail Congress in Paris this week.

He explained that he believed Asos would 'go into stores on Regent Street, the Champs Elysees, New York and Tokyo eventually. One day they will have a board meeting and say they want to be there.'

He put the success of his own online business down to understanding the fundamentals of the business. 'Great deals will drive traffic. You feed your traffic with the offers and the traffic feeds your website. Our DNA is inventory and the internet drives this model. The internet is a mail order company, only faster,' he said.

'You need to answer your customer, not with a stupid mail that you send to everyone but with a voice that makes them know you are behind the screen and taking care of them,' he said.

Granjon also stressed the importance of brands: 'Brands are the future. The Chinese have been making brands for the whole world, and now they are buying them. In the future they will want to sell brands to the world. We need to look at the way things are changing. In the future people will give phones to their children almost when they are born, because they will want to track them. At Vente-Privee we do 40 per cent of our sales through smart phone.'

'Amazon is a brand that creates trust and then it created a marketplace, for smaller retailers to use, and now it makes products. Amazon is now a brand,' he said.