Showroom Privé, the number two private sales site in Europe behind Vente Privée, has announced not only that they earned 250M€ in 2012, but that they are planning to earn 350M€ in 2013, a 66% growth rate. This past year, the site counted 10 Million visitors from France – likely a large percentage of their traffic, despite presence in other countries. The company has maintained steady growth since 2009, when it announced 75 Million € in revenue from 3 Million members, and it seems that they’ve got no plans to stop.
The company, which is founded and run by Thierry Petit, raised 37 Million € from Accel Partners back in 2010, in order to launch intenrationally as well as make acquisitions. The service is currently available in Spain, Italy, Portugal, The Netherlands, and in Belgium, and, in an article posted this week to FashionMag.com, Petit said that the company is currently working on expanding to Poland and Northern Europe, and plans to have upwards of 500 Million € in revenue in 2014. The founder said that the site, which already counts 70% of its sales in the fashion sector, is focusing in females aged 25-42, two thirds of which are mothers, for whom fashion is still a large priority when shopping.
There’s no doubt that Petit has got Jacques-Antoine Granjon’s Vente Privée in his sites as he continues to expand internationally – France’s first flash-sales site saw 1.1 Billion € in revenue in 2011, an 11% increase over 2010, which they had planned to use to bolster expansion into the US. Competitor & self-pronounced copycat GILT Groupe had already taken $500 Million in revneue in the US market before Vente Privée arrived, and now that word came out last December that Vente Privée’s venture with American Express has more or less hit a wall, it seems that Showoom Privé may easily overtake Vente Privée if it can maintain this kind of growth over the next few years as it expands internationally.
Then again, with GILT Groupe’s president leaving the American company, and with Jacques-Antoine Granjon becoming more active as a business angel than as a CEO, maybe there’s something these eCommerce founders know about their growth potential that Thierry Petit hasn’t figured out yet – or maybe he knows something they don’t.