Which portal is going to be the king of online luxury? At present several platforms aspire to the throne. Nevertheless, for the time being, none of them have successfully defeated the other competitors yet. While dealing with a virtual business world split into two major blocks, respectively Amazon in the Western one and Alibaba in the Eastern one, the most exclusive segment turns out to be still divided. However, many players, almost all of them, are striving hard to take its leadership.
The king of online luxury
The world of music has crowned Spotify, while the hotel industry has chosen Booking.com. In contrast, in the luxury industry still there is not an absolute leading player. The current scenario has been depicted and highlighted in an analysis carried out by The New York Times . Meanwhile something is evolving, of course. Richemont and Alibaba have announced they are going to make an over 1-billion-dollar joint investment in Farfetch. Such deal has somehow placed in a closer position the e-tailer led by José Neves and another leading player in the luxury e-commerce business, namely Yoox Net-a-Porter. Which, in turn, is controlled by Richemont group. Yet, unlike other industries, still none of them succeed in standing out as a prominent benchmark.
Amazon, a little too much “bazaar”
Amazon have been actively acting as well: they did not manage to make mincemeat of all their competitors though. Why not? According to the New York Times, their so-called “large bazaar” reputation somehow collides with luxury distinguishing exclusivity. Not to mention, in addition, that a few accounts, in the past, sold some fake products on their platform. Yet business strategists, who work with Jeff Bezos and his own enterprise, are striving to provide both fashion brands and their addicted buyers with a more valuable playground. In the meantime, Alibaba’s investment in Farfetch presumably evidences that China’s online giant rather preferred to “circumnavigate” those obstacles. Well, luxury war to take control over online commerce business has just begun.
In the picture, from left: Jack Ma (Alibaba), Federico Marchetti (Yoox), Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
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