This luxury e-tailer lets customers build their own shopping street
The world of online luxury retail is getting crowded. Between Net-a-Porter, Farfetch, 24 Sevres, and Matches, well-heeled shoppers have a wealth of options. All of these brands are coming up with innovative ways to provide customers with the kind of white-glove service they used to get when they still shopped in gleaming brick-and-mortar stores.
Orchard Mile, a three-year-old site, has found one approach that works. It allows customers to create their own “shopping street” that consists of the brands they actually shop at. So rather than having to wade through brands picked by the website’s style editors, the customer can click on their favorite brands–say, Balenciaga, Marni, Marc Jacobs beauty, and Ulla Johnson–and see a customized website that features their idiosyncratic picks. Unlike Net-a-Porter and 24 Sevres, which curate the products available from each designer, Orchard Mile offers that designer’s entire collection. This means the experience is more like actually walking down a street and entering each designer’s store.
Since the company unveiled this new “My Mile” platform several months ago, Orchard Mile has seen impressive results. Sales are growing at a rate of 26.9% a month, while the average purchase is $350, the company says. As retailers struggle to customize the experience for each person who visits its site, Orchard Mile’s approach has been to put those decisions in the customer’s hands–and it appears to be working.
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