"The first wave of the Internet is coming to an end"

Fashion

Jacques-Antoine Granjon is a man of vision. Here, at the World Retail Congress, in the Retail Sales Exhibition, which is taking place in Paris this year, everyone is taking his predictions seriously. The man is not just anyone. Born in 1962,

this visionary company head made his vente-privee.com platform, started in 2001, the largest store in France with a base of 13 million members (19 million in Europe). He started up his first business with a 3,000-euro loan from his father and bought end of the line stock that was later to be sold on discreetly to retailers. A small beginning, but the vision behind it was a powerful one, summed up by the phrase “You must buy well in order to sell we ll,” or, buy 1 and sell 2. His previous job, as a discount store owner, was certainly relevant in offering Internet possibilities. His slogan was “everyone sits up when branded products are offered with a massive discount.”

The concept

of his business is simple and effective: vente-privee.com is the mastermind behind the concept of event sales on the Internet and world leader in its sector. It specializes in the online destocking of leading brands, and access reserved is for its members, offering: “business to brands” and “business to members” at the same time. Membership of the club is free and without any obligation to buy. Sales are limited (3 to 5 days) and are organized in collaboration with more than 2,000 leading international brands in all areas. Stocks of the brands are only paid for when the sale is made, therefore no working capital is required and comfortable margins are guaranteed.

Jacques-Antoine Granjon’s credo is integration. Instead of everything being outsourced, the Chairman and Managing Director want to be puppet-master of all the links in the production chain and control the quality of the service provided both to the brands and to customers. This employs the concept of social roles of the company in society. When questioned about the values of their company, volunteer employees refer to “well-being” as a top value, and collaborators of vente-privee.com consider themselves to be well treated, not only financially.

Omnichannel vs Pureplayer

But above all, Jacques-Antoine Granjon believes in diversification. In the debate that is taking place, which focuses on the way in which the virtual and real worlds adapt to meet the new needs of consumers, omni-channel looms large in everyone’s minds. The owner of vente-privee.com seems to certain about the development of e-commerce. “Tomorrow’s world is the world of cross-distribution, of the omni-channel. In other words, the first wave of the Internet is coming to an end.” This means, for those who are allergic to marketing jargon, that any company whose business is based exclusively on the Internet, has no future. What will count in tomorrow’s world is the product and the confidence of the consumer in a brand, that he will be able to access by smart phone to a real store, from a tablet to a laptop computer, with the ability to buy as he pleases.

“Look at Asos,” says Granjon. “I think their products were initially only accessible on the Internet, but soon will be available in stores on Regent Street, the Champs-Elysées, New York and Tokyo.” To really hammer the message home: brands are the future! The Internet is only a tool. “Look at the Chinese; they are registering brands all over the world. They are even buying them from others now.” Regarding vente-privee, he says, “The key for us is stock and it is not always easy to find.”

Valuing the customer

Referring to the fundamental aspects of his company to put his reasoning into perspective, he says, “Special offers are going to generate traffic and that traffic is fed by your website. Our DNA is therefore stock inventory and the Internet is no more than a tool, allowing an online sales company to sell products more quickly. The Internet is not an end in itself. The service and the product are the important things. Which is why such great emphasis is placed on customer service. “You must reply to your customer. You can’t just use an endlessly distributed generalized message. It must be a message that tells the customer that someone is really taking care of him.”

Customer

service is the sinews of war [1]. George Plassat, chairman and managing director of Carrefour, certainly does not deny its importance. Speaking to a room packed to the rafters, the world number two head of “retail” devoted a significant part of the opening session of the World Retail Congress to this subject. He also hammered home the importance that must be given to this area, to customer relations, to respect for local aspects. Alexandre Bompard, chairman and managing director of the FNAC, the largest French retailer, also insisted there was a need to create a seamless omni-channel customer experience between the store, the Internet and the smart phone. “My aim is to convert 7 million customers, who are 100 percent store customers into omni-channel customers,” he said. “They spend 28 percent more.” He also replied to Granjon’s criticism on customer service in France and the inconsistency between the store and Internet price policies. “He is right, we must change the way in which we think about sales teams. But it’s not that easy. We’ve had sellers in place for 30 years. On my arrival, I was surprised to find that some of them thought that fnac.fr was a competitor.”

The other big subject broached at the Retail Congress concerns the initiatives taken by the brands to keep up with the boom in smart phones. Technological innovation seems to be the big challenge in 2013. Once again, Granjon has the last word on the subject: “Tomorrow, everyone will give a phone to his children at a very young age, simply to be able to keep in touch with his little one at all times. Using a smart phone to buy products will become the basic and best way of doing things.” He added casually that, “On vente-privee.com, 40 percent of our sales are made by telephone.” Vente-privee.com is anticipating a further two digit growth in 2014 and is hoping that the two figure increase will continue “for the next ten years.” The site should rapidly derive its main turnover from mobile Internet. “Soon, people will only buy using a smart phone. The smart phone is the magic wand of sales.”

[1] This phrase echoes the famous dictum of the great Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero that “The sinews of war is infinite money”.

Hervé Dewintre

Jacques-Antoine Granjon

Omnichannel

World Retail Congress