BuyVIP

» see buyvip.com as it lived, on the wayback machine

~ the eulogy ~

BuyVIP sold last season's clothes to people who had signed up to be told about it. The format was the private sale: a brand hands over stock it could not move, and the club emails its members about a sale that runs for a few days at 30 to 70 percent off, until the stock is gone. Membership was free and nominally by invitation, which let the brands say the discount was not public.

Gustavo García Brusilovsky and José Luis Vallejo started it in Madrid in 2006, five years after vente-privee had proved the idea in France. It raised about 30 million dollars, with the British fund 3i among the investors. By September 2010 the country selector on buyvip.com had seven flags on it: Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Poland and the Netherlands.

On 7 October 2010 Amazon announced an agreement to buy it. The press release counted more than six million members and 500 brands, and gave no price. The Wall Street Journal had already reported one, close to 70 million euros. Amazon had no Spanish store at that point. Amazon.es opened on 14 September 2011, so for eleven months a fashion outlet club was the whole of Amazon's retail presence in Spain.

The closure was announced in the first week of April 2017 and took effect on 31 May everywhere the club still ran, which by then meant Spain and two other countries out of the original seven. The part of Amazon's statement that mattered was one sentence long: "A pesar de los esfuerzos, este negocio sigue sin ser rentable." Despite the efforts, this business is still not profitable. About fifty employees were offered places in other Amazon departments.

~ the dossier ~

~ the door into spain ~

What Amazon got in 2010 was a working operation in a country where it had none, with six million people on the mailing list who were already used to paying online. In September 2012 the site was renamed AmazonBuyVIP.

After that the club had less and less that the main store lacked. Amazon.es grew its own flash deals, and the brands that used to clear stock quietly through private sales began listing it openly on Amazon at similar prices. Outside, vente-privee bought Privalia, the second largest club in Europe, in 2016 and squeezed the margins of everybody left. Amazon had already closed MyHabit, its American attempt at the same format, in May 2016.

~ the same spring in istanbul ~

BuyVIP never sold in Turkey, so from here it was only ever a line in Amazon's acquisition history. The format arrived anyway, and on the same schedule: Markafoni opened in Istanbul in 2008 and Trendyol in 2010, both as members-only sale clubs. Naspers closed Markafoni on 30 June 2017, thirty days after Amazon closed BuyVIP. Trendyol moved away from the club model and became a general marketplace, which is roughly what Amazon did with BuyVIP's customers.

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