vente-privee.com

1. "Vente privée" is a french e-business site with the particularity that it is supposed to be a private club, where you need a godfather to get an access. The site has such a great succes in France, that is not too difficult to find a Godfather, and ones this done, is possible to access all the private sales that interest you. (Already 3 million member and a turnover of 240 million euros in 2006 with 40 sales manager)

The main advantage for the customers is that these private sales have very low prices (from -30 to -70%), and last only 1 to 2 days. The customers receive an e-mail a few days before telling them what is going to be sold, and if they are interested, they register to that sale. The products are various, and can be: clothes, games, sportswear, watches, high-tech...Every sale has its own advertisement spot, that can be seen before the sale.

For the suppliers this type of sales can be very usefull to get rid of the products that were not sold in the traditionnal circuits, or that they know will have problems in the future to be sold at a regular price.

For the owners of the business this kind of sales is the core of their business, as venteprivee makes money through commissions on the sales realised through their internet site.

The customer group served is very large, as the sold products are various, but has probabely a majority of women aged from 25 to 50, as the products and site's graphics are more housewife oriented.

Competitors:
http://www.achatvip.com/
http://www.vente-en-or.com/home.php
http://www.showroomprive.com/
http://www.fruitrouge.com/
https://www.born4sports.com/FR-fr/Default.aspx
http://www.shopofthespot.com/
http://www.deco-smart.com/fr/accueil.php

Same business model :
http://www.voyage-prive.com/
http://shopping.infobebes.com/ventes_privees/accueil/accueil2.asp

The model could absolutely not be applied offline, as the whole structure is online-based. Mails, direct viewing of the products, direct buying with securised payment. All would be different offline, it would look like a regular "vente privée", which would be an incredible lost of time.

The model is sustainable, because there is no need of a huge amount of customers to make the business work, as the number of products are limited during a given sale. Most of the time everything is sold before the official end of the sale. The most important thing is to find the customer fitting to the product. It is a scalable business, as the number of products and the number of corresponding customers can be increased.

To increase even more the business I would try to have more information about the people registered on the site, to focus more on their needs and expectations, and to avoid selling mails that does not interest the members. A new member would fullfill a formular, telling the type of products he is the more interested in. I would also analyse what has been bought by a member to better understand him, like what "amazon" is doing.

2. Article about venteprivee.com:
http://www.journaldunet.com/reportages/07/070305-vente-privee/1.shtml

3. Websites using venteprivee.com within their website:
http://www.top-vente-privee.fr/
http://lesventesprivees.net/
http://www.shoppingaddict.fr/