By selling its tech, GaiaSuite aims to change how multichannel distribution is perceived

By selling its tech, Monnier Paris aims to succeed where Farfetch failed

The luxury multi-brand e-commerce retailer has recently started selling its Gaia Suite solution. This B2B activity is expected to represent 50% of its EBITDA by 2026.

Following Farfetch's sale for $500 million, the bankruptcy filing of Matches Fashion, and the deficit report of Yoox Net-aPorter, bad news has been piling up over the past six months in the world of luxury multi-brand websites. However, Diaa Elyaacoubi, CEO of Monnier Paris, is determined to "succeed where Farfetch failed." To achieve this, the multi-brand site, which has not disclosed its revenue since 2021 (€40 million at that time), is shifting its model and starting to sell its technology. Last month, it announced the launch of its AI-enhanced marketplace integrator for brands: Gaia Suite.

An AI-powered software

While luxury brands are increasingly managing their online sales internally, Diaa Elyaacoubi asserts that marketplaces remain crucial audience hubs: "There is a presence strategy for major brands that want to be visible without necessarily selling massively on these channels, and a commercial strategy for smaller designers who are looking for customers." Her software, Gaia Suite, offers luxury brands connectors to various global marketplaces, as well as smart tools for catalog uploads, pricing, and operations management.

For the geo-pricing strategy, the software allows brands to set prices using a centralized real-time view of product turnover rates, customs fees, and margins applied by region and marketplace. "You can reach this level of granularity very easily, determining that this item will be sold for €100 in France, €120 in England, and AI handles the conversion," explains the CEO. "You apply this strategy without having to load and modify ten different pages." The same logic applies to assortments, with the ability to adjust the catalog and commercial actions by region and platform.

But it's probably in catalog uploads where generative AI is most evident in Gaia Suite. "The attributes requested by Farfetch for your catalog are not the same as those from Galeries Lafayette or 24S," explains Diaa Elyaacoubi. "Very quickly, you find that 20 or 30% of your catalog is not uploaded because the attributes are incomplete." Monnier Paris has developed algorithms, paired with generative AI, to automatically fill in missing attributes, such as heel height or sleeve length. The AI analyzes photos and other catalog references to enrich product details.

A business as strong as e-commerce

The first client to benefit from these Gaia Suite features was Monnier Paris itself: "When I took over the company in 2020, the goal was to triple revenue growth without tripling the workforce," says the CEO. "The tool allows us to visualize our prices and stock in real-time across different channels, manage our margins, and create revenue forecasts." The result? The site has quadrupled its revenue growth, doubled its margin, and halved its costs by eliminating around thirty service provider modules. As of today, a dozen luxury brands, whose names remain undisclosed, use the software. The goal is to have twenty brands using the solution by the end of 2024: "We’re just starting, but we know we're in the right place with the right product. Some luxury brands are very powerful but still have an artisanal back office with data that isn't updated in real-time, which could lead them to continue a communication campaign on a product that's out of stock," illustrates Diaa Elyaacoubi.

By 2026, revenue generated by the Gaia Suite team, consisting of 30 people, is expected to contribute 50% of Monnier Paris' EBITDA. "The goal is for this second activity to contribute as much as e-commerce, even if the overall revenue will be smaller," explains the CEO. While the priority is ensuring connectivity with Shopify and Farfetch, other features for invoice and order management should soon complement the SaaS suite.

Read more details here: https://www.journaldunet.com/retail/1531537-en-vendant-sa-tech-monnier-paris-ambitionne-de-reussir-la-ou-farfetch-a-echoue/?gbmlus=bf591af9a94f0d253c000bb7b3b9f197cde9368d210c59b950a836efe5dd96ba