With his high-waisted jeans and sneakers,
nobody could have accused Steve Jobs of being a style leader.
Posthumously however the Apple founder is becoming an icon of the luxury
fashion business as the smartphone technology he pioneered shakes up a
sector
of the industry initially slow to embrace the Internet.
Ask Federico Marchetti, the Italian CEO of Yoox Net-A-Porter (YNAP),
the
fashion e-tail heavyweight that shifted 1.7 billion euros worth of designer
gear and luxury goods last year.
“Around 50 percent of our sales came from people ordering on
smartphones,”
Marchetti told AFPTV in an interview at Milan fashion week.
“Frankly speaking if the iPhone had not been invented that figure would
be
much lower. So I have to say thank you to Steve Jobs. It is thanks to him
that
we can do our business.”
The group now headed by Marchetti was created by last year’s merger
between
his own Yoox.com and London-based but Swiss-owned Net-A-Porter (NAP).
On paper it was a match made in business heaven but it was not an easy
birth: NAP’s founding shareholders were left grumbling about their stakes
being undervalued and its American-born creator Natalie Massonet left the
new
company as the fusion neared completion.
Marchetti meanwhile was acclaimed for having pulled off the deal of a
lifetime by persuading NAP’s Swiss owners, Richemont, to allow Yoox to
effectively take over a rival that had bigger sales but was struggling to
turn
a profit.
According to unaudited, pro-forma figures, the new business had combined
sales of 1.7 billion euros in 2015, up 31 percent on 2014.
Marchetti, 47 this year, says YNAP is on the cusp of something much
bigger
as the industry arrives at a digital tipping point.
“I created Yoox in 1999 and at the time it was quite hard to persuade
some
designers to be on the Internet,” the art-loving entrepreneur recalled.
“Now I
can see that the vision I had is getting there.
“There is a strong convergence between fashion and the Internet,
especially
through mobile. It has helped a lot and mobile will be the key to the
future.”
Online sales currently only account for around five to six percent of top
end fashion sales around the world. Analysts estimate that the figure could
triple or more inside a decade but nobody really knows how quickly the
online
revolution will unfold.
Top luxury brands have long been able to command margins in excess of 20
percent, giving them a powerful incentive not to tamper with their business
model.
Customers will never want to give up visiting boutiques and being
able to
see and touch the clothes before they buy them, Marchetti was frequently
told
when starting out.
That is changing. As well as operating its own sales platforms, Yoox
manages in-house online for dozens of brands including Armani, Valentino and
Alexander McQueen — an activity that contributes 10 percent of YNAP’s
turnover.
But its CEO insists the shutters will not be coming down on designer
boutiques.
“I have never been a fanatic,” he said. “I believe in the hybrid model
where the physical shops will be helped by online, as is happening now with
half the purchases in-shop driven by (research on) the Internet, and vice
versa.”
Marchetti believes the next wave of growth will be powered by a new
generation of dedicated fashion-retail smartphone apps, something he sees as
even more important in the short term than the potential of emerging
markets.
“I see something more tomorrow in the smartphone rather than India,” he
said.
Marchetti also plays down the “see now, buy now” trend which has seen
the
likes of Tom Ford offering their new clothes to customers as soon as they
are
shown on catwalks, rather than making them wait for the appropriate season.
Giorgio Armani is among those to have poured cold water on a trend which,
if it took off, could sweep away the system of twice-yearly fashion weeks in
Milan and elsewhere linked to the northern hemisphere’s seasons.
“There will be a gradual change but, especially for brands focused on
luxury, it will take a longer time,” Marchetti said.
Italian handbag designer Francesco Visone said young creatives recognise
that change is fashion’s new normal.
“With a disruptive wave, either you ride or it destroys you,” he said.
“Business is not like 30 years ago, everything is consumed more quickly and
Yoox saw that coming.”
Israeli-Italian designer Daizy Shely said she had seen interest in her
fledgling brand surge after she had a Marabou feather jacket showcased on
Net-A-Porter.
And she also embraces smartphone shopping as a consumer. “When you are
in a
shop in Milan everyone is jumping on you and they won’t leave you alone,”
she
said.
“My mum loves that but for me, I want to be sitting on my bed alone in an
online shop. Whatever I want is arriving to the house like a gift. I think I
am addicted to this.” (AFP)