YOOX NET-A-PORTER

yoox net-a-porter

E-COMMERCE STORES, Y

YOOX NET-A-PORTER

2021-4-15

YOOX NET-A-PORTER IS AN E-COMMERCE TOP PLAYER, BORN BY THE FUSION OF YOOX AND THE NET-A-PORTER 

Yoox Net-a-porter is a company that deals with online sales of luxury fashion and design goods. The group was created on the 5th of October 2015 following the merger between Yoox Group and The Net-a-porter group.

YOOX

Yoox was born as a startup founded in 2000 by Federico Marchetti. What later became the largest Internet retailer for luxury fashion was born in Casalecchio di Reno (Bo) in a warehouse. At the beginning it was not easy for Marchetti to gather trust and investments, but he did not lose heart. This is what Marchetti said about this initial period:

I had to win the general skepticism. There had been told 10,000 times that no one would have bought clothes on the Internet, that people wanted to see them, touch them, try them on in the store and not at home. I had found 10 thousand different answers to that objection, not to get too bored when I had to answer.

THE DEBUT

His career started when he casually found Elserino Piol’s name in the yellow pages, head of venture capital in Italy, founder of the Kiwi management fund. Unexpectedly, in 1999 Piol offered him three billion liras and promised him another three if the site went online within six months. Piol became the first investor in a project in progress. On the 21st of March 2000 Yoox was founded and after three months, on the 21st of June, Yoox.com in Italian and English went online.

The name that Marchetti decided to give to his new adventure was “Yoox”, where “Y” and “X” stood for male and female chromosomes and “Os” recall the brand’s DNA. The objective, in fact, was to create an inclusive website, addressed to everyone, with a strong identity. At the same time, the e-commerce in which unsold items of major brands were resold did not alter the image of the brand.

After Piol, Renzo Rosso started believing in the project. In 2006 Marchetti put his experience in the world of e-commerce and his technologic platform at the service of stylists and designers for their single-brand online store. He started with Marni – with the launch of the site powered by Yoox Group, marni.com – and he reached Valentino, Armani and all the fashion bigs. In 2008 Yoox was the pioneer of the functionality “See now, buy now”, the online shopping directly from the fashion shows. Moreover, in 2009, he started a path for which he still stands out: that of sustainability.

AMONG SUSTAINABILITY AND TECHNOLOGY

It was the first company to publish the annual Sustainability Report and to present YOOXYGEN, the first online shop-in-shop, dedicated exclusively to sustainable fashion.

In 2010, the leadership of Yoox Group continued, thanks to the use of particular technologies for the logistic management of the product. With an investment of 20 million euros, the Bologna freight village, one of the main offices of the group, became the first fully automated logistics point. This made it possible to improve order fulfillment times and therefore to improve the efficiency of the site. Over 200 employees dealt with digital production, or the transformation of each garment into a digital object thanks to an RFID (Radio frequency identification) code. Yoox took off and counted on average an order every 16 seconds with about 10 million visitors per day.

It was 2012 when the French luxury giant Kering joined forces with Yoox Group to create a joint venture dedicated to the management of the single-brand online stores of numerous luxury brands of the same group. On the 25th of January 2012 he received the Leonardo Award for innovation. Since 2019 there has been a section of the site where items created specifically for the brand are sold. The collection was called 8 by Yoox and offered trendy garments produced in a sustainable way, without waste and at an affordable price thanks to the use of big data.

In 2020 Yoox started the project with Vogue Italia, called Vogue YOOX Challenge – The Future of Responsible Fashion to support designers, creators and start ups all over the world, which, through innovative projects, decided to invest on a responsible and sustainable approach towards fashion and design, the category of the edition of that year.

NET-A-PORTER

While Marchetti created the Italian start up, the American entrepreneur and journalist Natalie Massenet founded Net-a-porter in June of that year. Net-a-porter is an e-commerce specialized in the sale of luxury fashion products with headquarters in London, controlled by the financial company Richemont. The website stood out due to many innovations: the same day delivery service and the launch, in 2014 of Porter, the first magazine with shoppable contents. In the same year, the first cross-channel services in the luxury sector were also developed for some online flagship stores.

There’s a wide range of products on the site for men and women, including accessories, clothes, underwear and make-up.

YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP

The unique Yoox Net-a-porter (YNAP) group was born from the merger of the two e-commerce companies in 2015, the company was listed on the stock exchange until 2018 and Marchetti held 5.67% of the shares. The group continued to manage multi-brand and mono-brand e-commerce sites. Among the multibrands, he managed yoox.com, MRPORTER.com and shoescribe.com, created in 2012 dedicated to women’s footwear. The Group became global leader in more than 180 countries for online luxury and fashion management. This was possible thanks to the creation of an experience oriented towards the modern user, personalized and attentive to their needs. A similar experience was made through the use of sophisticated technologies, artificial intelligence and human purchasing needs.

It also managed the single brand sites of 30 brands including Moncler, Pomellato, Stone Island, Brioni, Missoni, Dodo and Dsquared2. In addition to the warehouses in Bologna, today the logistics are also based in New Jersey, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo and the president of logistics is Massimiliano Benedetti.

Since its creation, YNAP has partnered with several major companies such as IBM, with which it has entered into a revolutionary partnership to foster technological innovation for an increasingly omnichannel world. In 2016 he created a joint venture with Mohamed Alabbar, an Arab entrepreneur with whom to invest in the oriental online luxury market. In 2017 YNAP and Valentino started a partnership to create NEXT ERA, a new omnichannel business model with the aim of giving customers an experience that combines the physical boutique with that of the online store.

RICHEMONT’S ACQUISITION

2018 was the year when YNAP officially became part of the Richemont Group and joined forces with Asian trading giant Alibaba in order to create optimal services for Chinese customers and the Eastern market.

In 2020, the Group continued its ethical and ecological mission, with a new initiative aimed at circular fashion. Infiniti 2030 was launched, a project which intends to involve customers to make them active players in the supply chain. The brand’s mission is to achieve specific sustainability requirements by 2030 such as: circular economy, circular culture, care towards the planet, positive thinking. That same year YNAP reinforced the relationship with Armani, that started with Marchetti in the 2000s. In fact,  Armani and Yoox-net-a-porter Group announced an agreement which aims at redesigning, in an evolutionary, digital and integrated key, the shopping experience in the physical and digital channels of the Armani group.

The collaboration portfolio continued with Prince Charles of England. Together they launched a sustainable capsule collection of 18 garments called Modern Artisan, a luxury collection destined to provide lasting garments in the consumer’s closet.

In July 2021, Federico Marchetti left his position as CEO. Geoffroy Lefebvre took his place previously director of digital distribution at Richemont for ten years.