Buy Online with luxury brand Yoox

November 29, 2015

If you do like to buy everything online, you may be curious to know more about a luxury brand Yoox. YOOX is an Italian internet mail order retailer of men’s and women’s multibrand clothing and accessory. Founded by Federico Marchetti, a former investment banker, in Zola Predosa near Bologna in 2000, Yoox Group has become an e-commerce company that serves “more than 100 countries worldwide”.

Online store YOOX

The company’s concept is to buy up overstocked or unsold items from previous seasons in “a direct relationship” from renowned fashion houses “including Dolce & Gabbana, Diesel, Gucci, Armani and Cavalli” as well as “manufacturers and authorized dealers” and sell them online at discounted outlet prices. This is to enable “luxury brands to off-load last year’s merchandise without undermining their brands or cannibalizing sales at their existing stores”. Vintage designer clothing (Chanel, Dior, Pucci etc.) is collected with the help of fashion editor Polly Allen Mellen and sold at special occasions. Some fashion designers have created capsule collections exclusively for yoox.com, such as Hussein Chalayan (menswear) or Alexandre Herchcovitch.

Mono-brand stores

In addition to its eponymous web site, the company, through Yoox Services (formed in 2006), operates the full-price online stores of fashion houses Marni (launched in 2006), Emporio Armani (2007), Diesel (2007), Stone Island (2008), C.P. Company (2008),Valentino SpA (2008), Miss Sixty (2008), Costume National (2008), Energie (2008), Emilio Pucci (2008), Dolce & Gabbana (2009), Moschino (2009), Jil Sander (2009), DSquared (2009), Bally Shoe (2009), Roberto Cavalli (2009), Napapijri (2010), Coccinelle (2010),Giuseppe Zanotti Design (2010), Alberta Ferretti (2010), Zeis House (2010), Maison Martin Margiela (2010), Ermenegildo Zegna (2010), Y-3 (2011), Brunello Cucinelli and Dirk Bikkembergs (2011), all of which are referred to as “powered by Yoox”.

Multi-brand store (thecorner.com)

In 2008, Yoox launched its full-price online menswear retail store The Corner featuring established designer brands and a selection of niche fashion labels from Italy and elsewhere. September 2009 saw the launch of womenswear at The Corner.

The name, Yoox, is said to be composed of the male (Y) and female (X) chromosome letters linked by OO, the infinity symbol ∞ or “the ‘zero’ from the binary code, the fundamental language of the digital age”.

Backed by venture capital firm Balderton Capital, YOOX was founded as a privately held company and achieved total revenues of $26 mio in 2004. By the end of 2005 it had reached $70 mio. In 2008, they reported sales of $138 mio, “a 48% increase from 2007″. 75% of Yoox were owned by private equity firms Capital Kiwi (Italy), 360 Capital Partner (Net Partners, Italy) and Balderton Capital (then the European offshoot of Benchmark Capital – now independent), founder Federico Marchetti owned 9% and 16% were owned by senior managers. Yoox went public at the Milan Stock Exchange on December 3, 2009, generated €95 Mio. in revenues from the IPO and was valued at €217 Mio that day. Since the IPO, 51% of the stock is in the market, about 11.5% are owned by Balderton Capital, Kiwi owns 6,8%, Nestor 2000 6.3%, JP Morgan has a 5.4% stake, 4.7% belong to Marchetti and the rest to other shareholders. The company achieved a net profit of €4.1 mio with revenues of €152.2 mio in 2009. The company is listed on the Borsa Italiana and is a constituent of the FTSE MIB index.

From its beginnings in 2000, the Yoox internet platform was powered by Hewlett-Packard. In 2007, the web site had “three million visitors per month” and “more than one million items delivered worldwide”. In 2008, over 1.7 million products were shipped to 53 countries by the group.

The company’s CEO and founder is Federico Marchetti, the head of marketing and sales is Massimiliano Benedetti. Marchetti, who had worked for “Bain & Co. as a strategic consultant, Lehman Brothers as an expert in luxury goods and as a banker in mergers and acquisitions” studied economics at Bocconi University in Milan and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

The company’s US subsidiary, YOOX CORP, is a Delaware corporation based in TriBeCa, New York, New York, New Jersey. For the U.S. market, YOOX partnered with Port Logistics Group (PLG) of Houston in terms of supply chain management, such as merchandise returns, re-packaging and shipping within the United States. The partnership also allowed for “a direct relationship with U.S. designers and U.S. branches of European designers”.

In spring 2009, YOOX Group announced its plans for an initial public offering at the end of 2009. This initial public offering (IPO) was realised at the end of November 2009, being priced at the top of the range of its valuation, and the deal being coordinated by Goldman Sachs and the Milan based investment bank Mediobanca.