Vogue Turns Style.com Into A Fashion Marketplace

Vogue publisher Condé Nast plans to expand its fashion eCommerce empire by repurposing its Style.com website as an online sales platform, the U.K. version of Vogue announced on Monday (April 27).

The new eCommerce Style.com site will launch this fall in the U.K., eventually followed by the U.S. and “other major countries.” The site will sell merchandise to consumers, including fashion brands and other upmarket brands in sectors that include beauty, travel services and technology. The site will function as the eCommerce arm for Condé Nast magazines including Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ.

“The audience of our magazines and websites around the globe comes to more than 300 million, a huge base of support with whom we already have an active relationship,” Condé Nast International CEO Jonathan Newhouse said in a prepared statement. “Our potential customer base is far higher than any fashion eCommerce business currently operating and will give Style.com an enormous advantage over its competitors.”

The new Style.com will operate as a stand-alone business led by Franck Zayan, who previously was head of eCommerce for Paris department store Galeries Lafayette, who said the site is already signing between five and 10 brands per week. “Fashion companies and other upscale brands understand the authority of our magazines and websites, and their unique ability to connect them to potential buyers,” Zayan said. “Style.com will take these relationships to a new level, taking advantage of our existing customer database. It will provide a great user experience for consumers, employing the most state-of-the-art technology, and build sales for the brands.”

The fashion-industry news and show reports that are currently on the Style.com website will be moved to Voguerunway.com, which is part of the U.S. Vogue website, the company said. Style.com began life in 2000 as the website for Vogue, then morphed into a fashion news site once Vogue launched its own website in 2010.

While Condé Nast called the new eCommerce site “the first of its kind for the publisher,” it resembles a joint venture the company launched last year, when it converted Lucky magazine into an eCommerce site in partnership with BeachMint. Like the Lucky joint venture, the new Style.com won’t ship merchandise itself — at least not in the beginning — but will function as an online marketplace for designers and brands and make money through commissions on sales, Fashionista reported.