Mytheresa Owner Sales Rise as Ultra Wealthy Help Luxury Platform

LuxExperience, owner of the e-commerce site Mytheresa, posted a rise in sales as the multibrand platform’s strategy of catering to the ultra wealthy helped it navigate a tough environment for high-end fashion.

Net sales at LuxExperience B.V. rose 7.6% excluding currency changes in its fiscal fourth quarter, the company said in a statement Wednesday. The growth was led by Mytheresa, its profit engine. LuxExperience said its adjusted EBITDA margin is set to rise between 2% and 3% in the current year from the 2.1% in the three months ended June.

“We are bucking the trend, we are in sync with where the growth is and we are profiting from the polarization in luxury demand,” LuxExperience Chief Executive Officer Michael Kliger told Bloomberg News in an interview Wednesday. “Because we don’t have a network of stores, we can adjust our marketing efforts to where the growth is, allowing us to be nimble.”

Growth at the platform has come as luxury companies from LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE to Hermès International SCA and Kering SA have seen their share prices tumble as demand weakened in key markets like China. The US has been a bright spot for the sector, a market where Mytheresa experienced 39% growth last quarter, Kliger said.

LuxExperience was created through the combination of Mytheresa, which offers a highly curated assortment of the latest luxury ready-to-wear, accessories, shoes and jewelry, and Richemont’s Net-a-Porter, Mr Porter and Yoox’s websites, the latter being a discount platform for off-season collections.

The merger of the platforms was completed in April last year with Switzerland’s Richemont SA now owning about 36% of the capital of New York-listed LuxExperience with MYT Holding LLC holding around 48%.

Founded as a boutique in Munich in 1987 before launching its website version two decades ago, Mytheresa now ships high-end women’s and menswear as well as children’s clothes to more than 130 countries. Its website offers labels including Gucci and Bottega Veneta, both part of Kering as well as Dries Van Noten, which belongs to the Spanish beauty group Puig Brands SA.

Mytheresa’s average basket stands at around €875 ($1,010), while the platform’s 100,000 most important customers shop every 28 days with even higher average baskets, Kliger said, adding that LuxExperience continued to see strong momentum in the current quarter. The Row, Richemont’s Alaïa, Kering’s Yves Saint Laurent and Phoebe Philo are particularly popular with Mytheresa customers currently, Kliger added.

The market for multibrand fashion e-commerce platforms has been challenging in recent years following the pandemic boom and the collapse of Farfetch, which ended up selling to Coupang Inc.

Unlike other platforms, “our strategy was always to focus on the big spenders and never chase the aspirational one-time luxury buyers,” Kliger said. Mytheresa organizes brand events for its very important customers in exclusive locations such as Lake Como or Porto Cervo.

Before Wednesday, LuxExperience shares had fallen by around 14% this year in New York amid an industry downturn, giving it a market capitalization of about $981 million.

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