Invite-Only Shopping Clubs
These exclusive online stores was advocated by vente-privee.com from France that mainly trades large-discounted luxury goods on the site, which enjoys over 1 billion revenue. The business model is to provide limited large-discount sales to its invite only members. Now we can see vivid growing sites such as ideeli.com, guilt.com, ruelala.com[1].
(Resource: quantcast.com)
It is the similar strategy to “long tail” as I mentioned in the blog before, they are more focused on the very niche market, providing small quantity to the more detailed segments. This strategy enables them to make the most of their investments and deliver the best value to the right customers.
Why Invite-only Makes You Tick?
Well, it reminds me of the word “sacred”, which means you put special value on something, for example the ring your Mum gave you, the lucky pen you use in examinations.
Becoming the member of these sites will to some extent make you feel yourself different and in-group. Isn’t it good to have the privilege in something while others can’t? Also, other than mass social media, it builds close relationship with the members by informing them only what they want. The protection of ‘invite-only’ filters spam advertisements or useless information, which adds to your trust to the brand. It’s more like a friends’ club where you don’t waste time talking rubbish to each other.
In addition, they are featured by first come first serve, cooperation with luxury brands for goods up to about 75%, all of which encourage members coming back and enhance the brand loyalty.
How far can it go?
Although they limit the customer size in a niche market, once these revenue is steady, what’s the next step? They do have some promotion to publish invitation code on magazines or expand by word of mouth, while compared to the official luxury brand shops their resources are rather limited. On the other side, compared to big trade platforms, their existence could hardly count. In the current environment where service and products actively find potential customers, how to be outstanding by sitting at the corner?
Reference: [1] Online Shopping: By Invitation Only
