Last week I was invited to Paris to see the Vente-Privee.com operation and meet the founders of the business which turned over €510 last year.

With plans for expansion in the UK the company faces a challenge to gain share in a mature market, often seen as Europe’s most demanding in terms of product and service.

Vente Privee works by calling in stock from brands that have been sold in one of its online sales, and once it’s in the Vente Privee warehouse it is shipped to the customer. Anything that isn’t sold stays with the brand.

The millions of users on its database has certainly given Vente Privee clout with brands, who have everything to gain by hosting a sale.

Research suggests 4 in 10 shoppers on Vente Privee go on to visit the brand in a bricks and mortar environment.

Not only is it an opportunity to clear stock (and attract people to store), for larger sales Vente Privee reports back to the brand with customer intelligence data.

Me with Vente Privee CEO Jacques-Antoine Granjon

Multimedia is high on the agenda too. With each sale comes a photo shoot and recording session – an in house team puts it all together to create a video to entice customers to visit a sale, a process CEO Jacques-Antoine Granjon described to me as “giving life to the product”.

I think Vente Privee is going to be giving life to many a wardrobe across the UK very soon.