What makes Private Sales so attractive?

It’s been thirteen years since the French company Vente Privee was the first to propose a website for online private sales where the participants were encouraged to purchase designer goods at a very attractive price.

This tiny revolution would remain unnoticed by many, but the result of it, namely the e-commerce industry boost at $ 3 billion and 500 new players all over the world – can’t be ignored.

This phenomenal growth is not the result of absolute randomness and has a very rational explanation (if one analyzes the facts). Even if today’s private sales offer a wide range of products from electronics to real estate, truly successful and effective private sales websites are the ones intended for a single defined consumer who is responsible for household expenses – the woman.

The private sales designated for the woman also dictate which of the goods will be the most perceptible to succeed in flash sales. That’s why the most successful, and, consequently, most popular are those online stores that offer fashion, designer clothes and home décor.

The success of private sales are defined by the following concepts:

Daily habits

In the world of private sales, 75% of the sales fall to the return customers. New flash offers (posting up exclusive samples of goods for sale) which are available for review just for a few minutes become available every day and the clients are happy to include this moment into their daily routine, making it a little different from checking morning emails.

Curatorial solutions

Since private sales are focused on exclusive items and each offer of the day is often unique, buyers have come to expect only the best. Not all goods accessible in private sales are the best from available ones. One of the most important tasks of e-commerce is finding ways of eliminating the stereotypes (no chance to touch, review, try on) and breaking the barrier feeling for the online stores’ clients together with the offer of the best available goods may help solve this problem.

Necessity & Entertainment

Flash offers do not last forever. Quite the contrary, they are like a flash – instant. Customers don’t have much time to examine the product deciding whether to buy it or not. In flash sales, every deal of the day has a limited quantity of products and a limited time frame for action. The customer must act quickly, otherwise, someone else will buy this item. This makes flash sales interesting, exciting and quite useful for consumers because they not only bought a certain thing for themselves but also won in the competition with thousands of other customers.

Social commerce

Women generate 62% of comments on Facebook. They maintain a vast area of influence and a great network effect. These facts, combined with the exclusive nature of private sales (each member has to be invited by some active member) form a social effect of online sales. Consumers do not buy by themselves anymore. They share hints, leave comments about their latest purchases, invite the members of their circles to connect, and soon you, as an owner of such a store get the “Black Friday” effect when the customers are promoting the website, flash sales and the products by themselves.

Private sales are a marketing platform. They are powerful tools of communication that allow users to revolve around a certain type of goods and share their enthusiasm with other members of the circles. Since many unique goods are being offered and the delivery management system may be far from an easy task, and the sales are being generated for a short period of time, the platform for such sales should be implemented using only the best technologies.