French Portals Compete to Increase Online Sales of Luxury Goods

Firstluxe.com, a new French portal whose focus is luxury, wants to help increase online sales of high end goods. Its main competitor on the market, Prestigium.com, has already established powerful alliances.

Fall 2007 seems to be the official start of the battle for online sales of luxury items in France. All the major brands have started selling online. For instance, Boucheron launched its online boutique last week.

Unsurprisingly, content + community sites are trying to attract luxury buyers, in order to get ad revenues from luxury brands. On October 9, luxury-focused website FirstLuxe.com officially launched. The site mixes editorial content (former Vogue chief editor Frédérique D'Orgeval is on board), a shopping guide, and web 2.0 features (e.g. communities).

Users are invited to register and choose among seven topics of interest:
- Femme,
- Homme,
- Beauté et Bien-Être (Beauty and Well-Being),
- High-Tech et Design,
- Art de vivre et Gastronomie,
- Loisirs & Evasion (Leisure and Travel),
- Joaillerie & Horlogerie (Jewelry and Watches)

FirstLuxe.com homepage

Users will be targeted by ads according to what they have indicated in their profile. Registered users also receive a personal VIP card that they can use to enjoy special services (not sure which ones, but they do mention a concierge).

Revenues will come from targeted and contextual advertisement à la Google, as well as from affiliate marketing fees (e.g. x% on the sale of a product or €y for sending a qualfied client to an advertiser's online store). The site does not sell anything but links to commercial partners.

Founder Bruno Haziza says that 28 luxury brands have already signed up, among which Chopard, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Pétrossian, Hediard and Veuve Cliquot. Haziza aims for 100,000 monthly site visitors at the end of the first quarter of 2008.

I have made a little tour of the site and I must say that I was disappointed. There is not much going on there. Several times, I stumbled upon blank pages saying "Coming up in October". So far, I have neither been impressed by the content. But I understand that the site has just launched, so let's wish it good luck, give it some time, and come back later for more.

FirstLuxe will have to compete with other luxury-themes portals such as JetAvenue.com, Luxe-Magazine.com, Prestigium.com ou encore Joyce.com. I think that Prestigium.com is the biggest threat.

Prestigium.com has been around since 2003. They have struggled a bit, but, lately, they seem have made the right alliances. For instance, their online shopping guide called MyPrestigium.com has been powering Elle.fr's shopping section since September 2007. They have also received money from a a very well-connected French investor called Marc Simoncini (founder of Meetic.com, the number 2 dating site in the world).

MyPrestigium.com homepage

While MyPrestigium.com is an online shopping guide, Prestigium.com is more of an online fashion magazine. I am not sure why they maintain the distinction between the two sites. Yet, Vogue has Vogue.com and ShopVogue.com, so they are not the only ones to use several sites, at the risk of confusing visitors. The company had revenues of €200,000 in 2006 and targets €500,000 in revenues in 2007.

The players are just getting started and none of them has yet built serious barriers of entry for newcomers. I am not a big fan of the design of either MyPrestigium.com or FirstLuxe.com. Yet, Rome was not built in one day. Let's see how they evolve.