Conde Nast is Transforming Style.com into a Global E-Commerce Player

Condé Nast is Transforming Style.com into a Global E-Commerce Player

The interest of Condé Nast towards the unexplored lands of online shopping is constantly increasing: it was actually announced the launch of the brand new e-commerce platform of the group, planned for next autumn. The protagonists of the project will be two consolidated editorial realities, which will merge in a revolutionary venture. Style.com, one of the reference website for fashion news and runaway coverage, will be transformed into a global e-commerce destination - and its editorial contents will be moved under the umbrella of American Vogue, on a new url, voguerunaway.com.

The e-commerce of Condé Nast will be an innovative showcase for about 100/200 brands divided into different categories, from luxury fashion to technological gadgets, beauty products and artistic ones, all characterized by the accurate vision of style and lifestyle of the portfolio brands of CN - including Vanity Fair, Glamour, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller and Wired.

With this clever choice, the venture between Style.com and Vogue.com will ensure Condé Nast the control of a global market, the elimination of unnecessary duplication costs associated with the similarity of the content of Style.com and Vogue.com and the consolidation of the two brands.

"In some ways Style.com duplicated and overlapped the vision of Vogue.com in the US and it was decided that this was really a great brand name for what we want to do with e-commerce" said Jonathan Newhouse, chairman and chief executive of Condé Nast International. "If these e-commerce companies are paying a lot of money to reach the people who read our magazines and use our websites, why should not we, who know our customers better than anyone, who have more information about and understand them and already have a relationship with them? Why should we not also offer them this service? Can’t we do it better?".

But according to Newhouse, at Condé Nast, the "church and state" separation between editorial and commercial operations will remain in place. "We're not going to have e-commerce people telling the editors or the photographers what to feature in the magazines. I'm sure there will be some communication, but it is not a question of turning our editors into salespeople. That’s not our intention".

Will the marriage between online magazine and e-commerce be the dawn of a new way to conceive of the use of the web? Definitely an informative approach, closely linked to a commercial one, will make future purchasing processes more immediate and, at this point, hopefully, rewarding.