Greg Zemor is founder of Neteven, a marketplace management application which enables you to sell on eBay, Amazon, PriceMinister, Fnac, Pixmania, Rue du Commerce, La Redoute, Cdiscount, Brand Alley, Atosho and OneWorldAvenue in France and in Europe. As well as French and EU marketplace Neteven can of course be used to manage retailing on UK marketplaces. Today Greg looks at the best Fashion marketplaces you should be selling on in France.
Sell on Fashion marketplaces in France
France counts more marketplaces among its Top 20 ecommerce sites than any other country. As mentioned in an earlier post, there are great opportunities for UK merchants to distribute Media and Consumer Electronics on marketplaces including PriceMinister, Cdiscount and Fnac. However, France also offers very powerful sales channels for Fashion (clothes, accessories, watches, jewellery, sportswear…). Although Amazon and eBay represent interesting opportunities in this category, they only account for a small part of shoppers looking for clothes online. The main marketplaces for Fashion in France are La Redoute, Brand Alley, Zalando and One World Avenue.
Neteven provides us with an interesting analysis of these marketplaces and the reason why any UK merchant should seriously consider working with them in 2013:
LA REDOUTE
Founded in 1928, La Redoute has made the successful transition from France’s first mail order company to multi-specialist in Fashion and Home furnishings. With the launch of the La Redoute marketplace in 2010 in conjunction with Neteven, retailers and brands can now distribute on its website viewed each month by over 9 million unique visitors. La Redoute also has an international presence in 24 countries.
BRAND ALLEY
Brand Alley used to be a private sales company before becoming the primary competitor to La Redoute in the Fashion category in France. The marketplace opened in 2011 in partnership with Neteven and provides merchants with a strong sales channel in the Fashion category. Brand Alley functions as a standard marketplace but can also provide brands with a logistics solution.
ZALANDO
Now a place to buy clothes, accessories, sports items, beauty products and luxury goods, Zalando is a Fashion destination that goes far beyond its original focus on shoes. Initially a traditional etailer, Zalando opened its marketplace in 2012 in Germany and in 2013 in France and Italy. Brands can now benefit from the same quality of service that made Zalando famous and distribute their products in France, Germany and Italy, with more countries to follow.
ONE WORLD AVENUE
Created in 2012 in partnership with DHL, One World Avenue is a new generation of marketplace. One World Avenue functions as a standard marketplace for inventory management but will promote your products in more than 50 countries. When an order is made on the site, the merchant ships the goods to the DHL warehouse in the UK. From there, One World Avenue takes over and handles delivery, shipping fees and taxes and duties.
Neteven opportunities in France
Each marketplace has specific ways of working with merchants and different integration options. Before launching, it is important to have properly understood their audience, product structure, order management system and expectations and methods of customer communication. Properly managed, these marketplaces will represent a significant part of your online business, and Neteven can accompany you in this process from start to finish.