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It is maybe the largest flop within the historical past of the Swiss luxurious items business. Richemont, with the manufacturers Cartier, IWC and Montblanc, at the moment once more introduced a write-off of 1.3 billion euros in its annual report. The worth of on-line enterprise is being revised downwards.
The calculation does not add up
Two years in the past, the corporate wrote off 2.7 billion euros, a complete of 4 billion that the group wasted with its on-line enterprise. In different phrases: Richemont miscalculated. Selling costly merchandise over the Internet is way more troublesome than anticipated.
Online enterprise was capable of enhance in the course of the pandemic. However, such on-line gross sales of high-priced merchandise similar to purses, watches and jewellery are declining once more, at the least on the Richemont platform.
It had began so promisingly. Richemont gained a foothold in on-line enterprise nearly 20 years in the past and was praised for it. At the time, one had the impression that Richemont had acknowledged the development of on-line gross sales sooner than the competitors.
Investments and partnerships
Over the years, Richemont invested increasingly within the on-line sector and took over the net platform Joxnet-Aborte. This is the world‘s largest platform for costly merchandise, particularly costly clothes manufacturers similar to Armani, Gucci and Saint Laurent. All vital and huge vogue labels are represented on the Richemont platform.
But that is not sufficient. Four years in the past, Richemont introduced a partnership with two giants in on-line enterprise: Alibaba from China and Farfetch from the UK. The thought on the time was to construct a worldwide on-line platform for getting watches and jewellery in order that different watch producers might additionally promote their luxurious items by way of the platform.
Richemont attracts a line
Now it seems: That did not work. So the opposite watch and jewellery producers had been cautious of promoting their merchandise on Richemont’s platform. There can be the issue of safety. When you purchase watches price a number of thousand francs, you need to make sure that nothing will go incorrect alongside the way in which. It is healthier to purchase the product instantly in shops and boutiques.
The consequence: Richemont is giving up its formidable plans and needs to promote its Joxnet Aborte platform this 12 months. The firm is thus drawing a line underneath the net journey.
Manuel Rentsch
Business editor SRF
Open the folks field. Close the folks field
Manuel Rentsch is a enterprise editor at Radio SRF. He can usually be heard on the SRF 3 Economy present.