Kering cuts ties with Yoox Net-a-Porter and retakes control of e-commerce

Kering retakes the lead of e-commerce. The French luxury holding is finishing off the break-up of the joint venture it had with Yoox Net-a-Porter (YNAP). The company wants to recover the management of its brands’ online platforms so as to strengthen the omnichannel strategy.

This move is produced a year after Kering created the position of chief client and digital officer and appointed Grégory Boutté for it. The break-up with YNAP is produced five months after Richemont concluded its acquisition.

Kering will therefore control the online stores of all its different firms after 2020. Nowadays, the group’s online business represents about 6% of sales and, in the first quarter of 2018, it boosted them up an 80%, according to WWD.

Boutté claims that six years ago, when Kering launched the joint venture with Richemont, the degree of e-commerce’s maturity in the luxury industry was quite low. However, the executive thinks that nowadays, the level of recognition it implies is enough to determine that it is the right decision.

Kering ended the first nine months of the fiscal year (concluded on September 30^th) with a rise of 27.1% of sales, reaching the figure of 9.83 billion euros. The company’s growth was led again by Gucci, which increased sales a 35.6% in the same period.