Best Platforms for Luxury Fashion E-commerce

by | Apr 22, 2021 | Guides

luxury e-commerce

Over the past decade e-commerce has become essential for every brand: from big multinational corporations to small family owned business. In this article we will offer a presentation of marketplaces, for anyone interested in luxury fashion e-commerce.

E-commerce has possibly been one of the biggest innovations in retail history. It started as a niche business, critizied for the lack of security and transparency, but through the years it gained more and more users, to the point of becoming essential for every retail business.

In the recent past, the coronavirus pandemic contributed to make this trend even more important. Without being able to shop in physical stores, due to the lockdown, customers relied on internet shopping.

According to a research by Statista, in the second quarter of 2020 16% of the sales in the U.S. were online.

This applies of course to fashion, where physical stores’ sales are declining, while online sales apparently will grow around 10% in the next years.

Considering these stats, has become essential for a fashion retailer or producer set up an omnichannel strategy for his luxury brand.

Selling online, however, may not be as easy at it sounds, as it requires a completely different approach from the one used in brick and mortar stores.

For this reason many producers and brands choose to rely on third party marketplaces. These are websites that can handle the logistics and the delivery process for their sellers.

This strategy, though, has a major problem: the scenario of third party marketplaces is extremely fragmented and every website has it’s own features that can fit the brand or not.

Decide which marketplace suits best for the products we intend to sell it’s a crucial decision. It requires a serious investement of money and time and it can decide wherever the sales will be successful or not.

For this reason we are providing a brief but exausthive guide of all the major e-commerce platforms, in order to highlight which are the ones that can offer the best solution for every brand.

Global marketplaces:

Social Media Marketplaces:

Marketplaces for Made In Italy:

Country-Specific Marketplaces:

Global Marketplaces

Zalando

Founded in Germany, Zalando has come a long way, becoming the fifteenth most visited fashion e-commerce in the world, with 32 millions active users in 17 countries and 1 billion visits in the second quarter of 2019.

Zalando is very popular in Europe with 145 milions orders in 2019 and European producers often rely on this platform in order to expand their business abroad.

Zalando‘s core business is definitely shoes, as they make up more than 20% of their entire stock.

Talking about luxury, Zalando has it’s own premium section, where showcases important brands like Vivienne Westwood, Sportmax and Versace Jeans. It’s purpose is to compete with luxury fashion e-commerce powerhouses like Yoox or Farfetch.

Zalando offers to his customers two different selling strategies: wholesale or partner program.

Zalando‘s partner program works as a traditional retailer, buying a given quantity of the goods at a wholesaler price.

In the wholesale service instead, Zalando provides the producer with an independent marketplace, that needs to be handled completely. This solution gives a wider range of control, but it requires a bigger effort than the partner program.

In both cases, sellers pay fees to Zalando, related to the kind of products.

Amazon

Without a doubt the world’s most popular e-commerce website, 11th most visited website in the world (fourth in the US) and no less than 2 billions visit in the first six months of 2020.

The Italian version of Amazon had 163 milions visits in the first part of the year and small and medium companies made one million € in sales in 2019.

When it comes to selling Amazon offer his affiliates a wide range of choice.

From a free standard account for occasionals dropshipping, but with a limited number of sales, to professional accounts with unlimited sales.

There is a very high number of solutions for selling on Amazon, but generally professionals can have subscription for 39$ a month with an unlimited number of sales. Non professionals don’t need subsciptions but pay 0,99$ for each item.

Similarly, a seller can choose between several kinds of accounts.

A Standard Account is ideal for occasional dropshipping, it’s free but it has limitations on the number of products that can be sold.

With a Professional Account, instead, paying a 39$ fee it’s possible to sell without restrictions and Amazon also provides some services to help the wholesaler.

Amazon’s payments fees can be divided in three main categories: a fee on the cost of the product, the account fee and the cost of Amazon FBA.

The Fee on the cost of the product are calculated on the product’s price and are similar for every category of fashion products.

The account fees are all those fees we have already illustrated in the previous paragraphs.

Now we want to talk about an interesting service: the FBA or Fulfilled by Amazon and its costs. It consists in a service that allows the seller to ship products to an Amazon warehouse where they are going to be stored, packed and finally delivered.

It means that Amazon is willing to take care of the logistic for his wholesalers, in exchange for a fee. The cost depends on several factors, but the most important ones are the dimensions of the product and the time of the year.

Finally, there are two Amazon services that are worth mentioning. The first is Amazon Brand Registry, which has a very useful purpose for everyone dealing with luxury.

It consists in a series of tools offered by the website in order to allow sellers to build a strong brand identity through sponsored content and analytics. This service also focuses on protecting the brand from violations and counterfit products.

The second service is Amazon Born to Run, created recently due to the recent events of the pandemic.

To help all the retailers affected by the lockdown, Amazon offers the top position of the search page to help them to better showcase their products.

Mr Porter

  • Mr Porter website
  • Year of foundation: 2015
  • Country of origin: Italy
  • Brands available: more than 500
  • Useful links: n/a

Mr Porter is one third of online fashion retail giant YNAP: a group born in Italy and specializes in selling high end clothes and accessories. It consists of a website and two other household names: Yoox and Net a Porter, that we will discuss later.

It’s important to remember that this website focuses exclusively on male fashion, with a choice of more than 500 premium brands.

It also expanded outside of clothes, adding other categories like grooming, performance and lifestyle.

It also has a particular way of engaging his audience. This website regularly publishes two magazines both digital and paper.

All the contents are produced by Mr Porter and all the items on the articles can be purchased.

Net a Porter

This website can be seen as the alternative to Mr Porter for female customers. It is a fashion luxury e-commerce offering almost the same number of brands to a worldwide audience (around 6 milions people).

It has a very interesting feature: here you can see which clothes the most stilish woman in the world buyed. Therefore, having a product there could make a huge difference for the brand.

Net a Porter takes the sustainability of their clothes very seriously: the initiative Net Sustain has the specific purpose to highlight eco-conscious labels.

In 2018 it launched an important initiative called the Vanguard Program, that consists in an incubator for new brands with high potential: every year, four of the most promising brands will be selected and showcased on the website, with a broad exposure.

The Rake

the-rake-luxury-e-commerce
  • The Rake Website
  • Year of foundation: 2008
  • Country of origin: UK
  • Brands avaliable: more than 200

You may think that you already heard this name, and you’d be right. In fact, this marketplace is an extention of the famous fashion website The Rake.

With their expertise in fashion and design it was just a matter of time before they would launch their own luxury fashion e-commerce. The products on sale are designed for a male audience, who love classic style.

The philosophy of this e-commerce can be seen very clearly in the way the product is presented: products are presented in a very editorial way, just like a fashion magazine’s article and several small artisans or designers are often showcased.

For this reasons The Rake offers a valuable place for retailers, and if you are interested in selling you products with this marketplace, we suggest you to contact them, in order to know the selling details.

Farfetch

  • Farfetch Website
  • Year of foundation: 2007
  • Country of origin: UK
  • Brands available: 3000
  • Active users: 2 millions

Founded by Jove Neves, Farfetch is widely considered the biggest e-commerce in the luxury fashion field. It has been active for almost a decade and during this time it never stopped expanding, continuosly improving his logistics and even adding physical stores to its distribution.

The most peculiar thing about Farfetch is the possibility to create an autonomous “boutique” for the the brand inside the marketplace.

Despite the high numbers of brands available, only 700 boutique are active at the moment on the website due to the extremely accurate selection.

If you want to try to have your own boutique, you just need to send a request directly to Farfetch. Your brand will be examinated carefully and eventually you will have a dedicated account manager, in case of a positive feedback.

For what regards the regular selling process, you have to take in consideration that Farfetch revenue system is based on selling fees, that are generally higher than the average (around 20/25% of the final price).

Yoox

  • Yoox Website
  • Year of foundation: 2015
  • Country of origin: Italy
  • Active users: 10.000.000
  • Useful links: Yooxygen

The third and final part of YNAP group: with more than 10 milions visits per month Yoox is the crown jewel of the online fashion retail group.

This website started in Italy after an intuition of the founder and CEO Federico Marchetti and now is one of the most popular luxury fashion e-commerce in the world.

The whole Ynap group has always been very aware of sustainability, as mentioned before, in the paragraph about Net a Porter.

As a matter of fact, Yoox took it to a next level thanks to it’s alternative platform Yooxygen, founded in 2009, and focused on artisanal and sustainable clothing.

Due to extremely accurate selection for the showcased brands, the details about selling on Yoox aren’t explicitly declared; for that reason, we recommend you to contact Yoox to find them out.

ASOS

  • Asos Website
  • Year of foundation: 2000
  • Country of origin: UK
  • Brands available: 850
  • Active users: 23 millions

Since it’s beginning in 2000 Asos has become one the biggest players in online retail for fashion expecially thansk to its wide selection of brands, including high-end and luxury designers.

With an average of 65 milions views in the first half of 2020 Asos is a must to have in your marketplaces’ portfolio. This website gives the possibility to create an indipendent boutique on the marketplace section.

The subsciption starts at 20£ per month and takes a 20% fee on every purchase, with no listing fees.

Just like in other websites, a retailer can have the possbility to create his own boutique in Asos.

This program is available to a large share of sellers and incorporates small brands who want to step their game up and also collectors who want to sell some of their valuable clothes.

However, Asos wants the quality of the products on their marketplace to be as high as possible. For this reason they issued a checklist of what is necessary to apply for a boutique. You can find it here.

Matchesfashion

A very interesting marketplace, focused on luxury clothing and accesories, with a collection of the most important brands.

Its outstanding result of 4 milions visitors per month put Matchesfashion on the map of the luxury fashion e-commerce websites.

Starting as a small boutique, in a few years it expanded into a luxury e-commerce of global scale. It’s secret was never losing it’s boutique appeal, where big brands like Gucci are next to newbies fashion designer.

For more information about the webiste and its terms and conditions, we advise you to contact Matchesfashion directly.

Ebay

We couldn’t talk about marketplaces without mentioning Ebay, one of the most popular marketplace on a global scale. The Italian version, according to Similarweb, has more than 120 milion visits every year.

The most distinctive feature of ebay is the auction, where the buyer can bid for what he wants.

Additionally, Ebay offers the possibilty to create an autonomous webstore and to choose between a standard subscription and premium one.

The main difference between the two accounts is that the premium offers different advanced marketing tools such as analytics based on the latest sales and discounts on insertions on Ebay or on other websites. On the other hand, the standard version offers only Ebay marketing tools and a given ammount of insertions.

Clothes are a very common purchase on ebay, in facts, they are the second most selling category, right behind electronics.

Ebay itiself actually claims to have 24 milions active buyers interested in fashion on their platform. The website also takes care of the logistics, with services such as label printing or door-to-door tracking.

Veepee

  • Veepee Website
  • Year of foundation: 2001
  • Country of origin: France
  • Active Users: 72 millions

Between all the marketplaces Veepee is a very peculiar one. It is based on “Event Sales” where only webiste subscribers can purchase luxury items at a very low price.

The events last generally from 3 to 5 days and each sale is dedicated to a specific brand.

Due to the exclusivity of the brand, Veepee carefully selects the brand they showcase on the webiste and the informations about the selling conditions are reserved.

Vestiaire Collective

luxury-e-commerce-vestiaire-collective

Vestiaire Collective is one of the most important marketplace for selling and buying second-hand luxury clothing. This means that most of the items have some sort of discount, as they are not new.

To assure that the clothes are authentic, part of the staff of Vestiaire Collective is composed by a team of experts which verifies all the items that private sellers want to sell on the marketplace.

Like some of the website we previously mentionend, Vestiaire Collective selects carefully the brands listed on the platform: this means that terms and condition should be asked directly to the website.

The Luxury Closet

luxury-e-commerce-the-luxury-closet

Born in Dubai, The Luxury Closet is becoming a marketplace to keep an eye on. Consisting in a luxury fashion e-commerce for clothes and accesories operating globally but with a focus on the middle east: an area with an interesting economic growht rate and a rising desire for luxury and quality.

As we have seen before a wholesaler can either choose between a standard or a VIP account.

This last one allows to rely 100% on the platform, for what it regards promotion, logistics, delivery and even a professional photoshoot for each item.

The only condition is to upload a minimum of 5 items to the website.

Bonanza

  • Bonanza Website
  • Year of foundation: 2008
  • Country of origin: USA
  • Active users: 50.000 (the site only counts the merchants)

Often compared to Ebay, Bonanza is a massive online marketplace active since 2008, with more than 10 milion items for sale and active in 190 countries.

The platform doesen’t actually focus on luxury fashion e-commerce primarly, but it can be an interesting solution for wholesalers.

Bonanza as well gives the possibility to create a webstore and doesn’t require insertion fees or monthly subscription fees. Instead, it calculates the ammount of money to pay based on the final value of sales.

Etsy

  • Etsy Website
  • Year of foundation: 2005
  • Country of origin: USA
  • Active users: 39,4 millions

Etsy is an e-commerce platform entirely dedicated to artisanal and hand made products. It has a wide range of sellers, also due to its commissions fees, among the lowest of all the marketplaces.

They consist just in a 0,18€ for every insertion a 5% fee for every transation and, eventually, a 15% fee for ads showed outside the website.

Just like Bonanza, Etsy‘s core business in not specifically luxury fashion e-commerce, but it can be an interesting solution for producers who want to expand their reach even further.

Amazon Luxury

Few details are known about this new service by Amazon.

It’s speculated that is going to be a competitor to marketplaces like Farfetch or Yoox, powered by Amazon‘s state of the art logistics and customer care.

None of these rumors have been officially confermed so we advise to take it with a grain of salt: besides the official lauch has been delayed due to Covid 19.

Lyst

Not a marketplace by definition, but still relevant enough to be featured on this webiste. It consists of a search engine for luxury fashion e-commerce, showing the results of 830 online marketplaces.

Social Media Marketplaces

Facebook Shop

One of the latest addition the list of marketplace comes from the biggest social media network in the world.

Mark Zuckenberg‘s creation decided to add e-commerce to his wide number of services and you can be sure that is going to have an huge impact on the whole scenario.

This initiative hasn’t been fully developed yet in all the markets where Facebook is present, but it has already got collaborations from the best e-commerce softwares like Shopify, Bigcommerce, Woocommerce and many more.

Furthermore, Facebook Shop gives retailers the possibility to create their own web shop on their Instagram or Facebook profile, showcasing the products and completing the purchase without leaving the app.

But it doesen’t stop here, all the other apps of the Facebook group will likely have a role: for example chats like Messenger or Whatsapp for contacting clients, or in the future, doing the entire order.

For what it regards the conditions and fees, the only data avalable are about the USA market and the fees consists in a 5% of the value of the sales for orders equal or less than 8 dollars, according to Facebook itself.

Facebook Catalog

This marketplace is a bit different from the others, as it’s not a selling platform but a virtual catalogue of all the products that the seller wishes to showcase, in order to sell them afterwards on all the Facebook apps.

Therefore it can be considered an extension of Facebook, with zero fees and your products can be uploaded automatically on Facebook Catalog if they are already on a platform like Shopify or Woocommerce.

Pinterest Catalog

Just like Facebook, another major player of the social network has decided to launch an e-commerce strategy.

We are talking about Pinterest, the 28° most visited website with 367 milions visits in the first quarter of 2020 (according to Similarweb).

The analytics of this platform are fairly interesting: it’s popular in the U.S.A. with almost half of the traffic coming from there, the user are 80% women and, moreover, three quarters of the accesses come by mobile users.

Considering that the platform primarely showcases clothing and accesories, of course it was a natural choice to develop Pinterest Shopping in 2018, a new feature that simplifies the upload of the seller’s catalogue.

In order to use this service is necessary to subscribe to Pinterest Business, therefore all the conditions for selling are related to the account.

Marketplaces for Made In Italy

Barròco

  • Barròco Website
  • Year of foundation: 2018
  • Country of origin: Italy
  • Brands available: 45

Barròco‘s concept came from a simple question: is it possbile to help artisans and small manufacturers to sell their products online? The answer obviously was yes, and for this reason Barròco was launched.

This website is not just a simple marketplace for luxury fashion e-commerce, but it aspires to be a partner for the brand, helping it with production and customer care.

If you find this new project interesting for your italian brand we suggest you to contact the platform, to find out more about their terms and conditions.

Viamadeinitaly

Founded by a trio of entrpreneurs, who had the same goal as Barròco. Viamadeinitaly help italian manifacturers to expand internationally.

This marketplace, however, is a little bit different than the others. It dosen’t charge any fee for the sales and gets his revenue from the subscriptions.

It is possible to choose between three plans: standard for 95€ a month, premium for 120€ a month and lastly enterprise for 240€ a month.

Details for showcasing products on this luxury fashion e-commerce platform should be asked to Viamadeinitaly directly.

Country-Specific Marketplaces

Tmall

Tmall is a marketplace that needs to be taken in consideration, expecially if you plan to export goods in China. It started out as spin off of Taobao, China biggest C2C website and in less than a decade it has become Asia’s biggest e-commerce, with an impressive 61,5% market share.

This gives retailers the possibility to access a huge number of people, as a matter of fact, studies show that 82% of the chinese population do online shopping regularly.

Tmall is focused on marketing and how the products are presented: therefore there is a wide selection of how to promote the products, all based on storytelling. This includes live streaming, newsletter and collaboration with opinion leaders.

For what regards the part about selling, it may get a little complicated: previously it was necessary to start a society in China just for selling on Tmall, but in the last years it became more simple and now it’s enough to apply on Tmall Global (a platform specifically designed for foreign brands).

The subsciption fees for clothing and apparel can reach up to 10.000 USD per year, while the sellling fees depend on the products and the logistics. This makes Tmall a rather expensive maketplace, so the investment should be carefully considered.

It’s important to notice that in the latest years Tmall decided to focus more on luxury products, with more than 130 well known brands joining since the beginning.

With a partnership with Net a Porter already happening as well as more luxury brands preparing to join in, Tmall luxury e-commerce is likely to continue it’s growth.

Finally, Tmall offers a service for foreign customers to help them to adapt to the chinese market called Tmall innovation center, which offers data insights and accurate customers feedback.

JD

  • JD Website
  • Year of foundation: 2004
  • Brands available: n.a.
  • Active users: 442 millions

Second only to Tmall, JD is another powerhouse in the asian e-commerce scenario. The website has always been very supportive of foreign brands, as it has it’s own crossborder platform indeed, backed by an excellent logistic.

Despite being more open to foreign companies, JD has some requirements for selling on it’s platform, mostly about business regulatons and trademark registrations.

The share of luxury e-commerce is fairly low, around 10%, but important brands such as Prada or DKNY are available on the catalogue.

The fees are lower compared to it’s competitor Tmall, with a yearly fee around 1000 USD and comission from 2 to 8%, depending on the order value.

Wildberries

While China has been considered the most attractive foreign market for years, many retailers neglected Russia. However, it turned out to be a bad choice. For fashion, expecially, the share of purchases online was more than one third, and it can grow even more in the next years.

The most interesting platform is Wildberries, that has just become Russia’s biggest e-commerce, in the light of a revenue around 1.5 bilions €.

In the latest years crossborder e-commerce has risen by 37%, so Wildberries might become one the most interesting platforms for selling luxury. In facts luxury foreign goods are very appreciated.

For conditions and fees we advise to contact the platform directly, as they are extending their reach internationally.

However, it’s important to point out that logistcs may be complicated is some occasions. For that reason, it’s important to be well prepared on this side.

As you can see, the there is an impressive number of marketplaces to choose for anyone who wants to sell luxury apparel online.

Before finishing this article, we would like to give you some extra tips.

First of all, choose the right website. The marketplaces shown in this article are very different between each other and everyone has it’s own unique features, from the geographic target to the way they handle the selling process. Hence, you should choose the one who meets your specific needs.

Secondly, it’s also important to present your products in the best way possible; maybe using professional photos and writing a detailed description.

Last but not least, always interact with your customers anytime is possible. This will give you the possibility to keep in touch with them and know their taste. This implies a strong social media presence, in order to offer a tailored service of luxury e-commerce.

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