Richemont officially proposed today to buy the 50% remaining stake of YNAP and Federico Marchetti announced his approval of the bid.
Richemont, guided by Johann Rupert was among the first ones to believe in the power of e-commerce when it bought Net-à-Porter in 2010.

Despite being a head of Group more focused on hard luxury with high-end watches and jewellery brands such as Cartier, Jaeger Le Coultre and Panerai, with a traditional distribution network made of brick and mortar retailers, Johann Rupert has always been very keen on new technologies and innovative projects and he recognized quickly the huge potential of online sales for fashion products.

Thanks to this move Richemont will become the greatest player in fashion e-commerce and the biggest e-commerce seller of its competitors’ brands.
It’s thanks to an impeccable vision and determination that Rupert and Marchetti put in place a strong strategy for the e-commerce company that will represent a benchmark for all the competitors.

It’s a pity that Kering, who set up a joint-venture with Yoox in 2012, didn’t go further and didn’t strengthen the partnership and that LVMH, owner of the very first luxury e-commerce, eLuxury, shut down its operations in 2009.