Vente-Privée withdraws from US market

By

Bruno Joly

Published
Oct 28, 2014

Is it the end of an American Dream or a simple misunderstanding between partners? American Express, a world leader in credit cards, announced Monday that it will end its joint venture with the French company Vente-Privée.com by the end of the year. Soon after, the French company confirmed the report, saying that it will refocus on Europe while reflecting on a new model for the US.

Vente-Privée, the French private sales company crossed the Atlantic in 2011. In order to do so, it mounted a joint venture with American Express with the intention of attracting well-off clients holding the American company’s credit card. 

"Both companies decided that because the road to profitability for Vente-Privée in the USA was going to be longer than expected, it was time to focus on other priorities,” American Express spokesperson Leah Gerstner told Reuters. 

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Back in 2011, however, when the idea was first presented, Jacques-Antoine Granjon was pleased to have found an excellent partner for the American project, and the co-founder of Vente-Privée set a goal of a half a billion dollars in turnover within 4 years. But in 2013, turnover in the US amounted to only 50 million dollars. ”We were familiar with many American sites that have been launched in Europe. Today, it’s a French site that is being launched in the US. We’ve invented a model that Americans did not invent,” Vente-Privée’s president said at the time in New York, where the joint venture is based.

Launched in 2001 in France, the company Vente-Privée, which has since diversified into travel, wine and tickets for shows, is available in many European countries but, in the end, has not been successful in the US, where there are countless private sales platforms. 

In 2013, Vente-Privée saw its sales jump by 23% to 1.6 billion euros.