Flash Sale Site Vente-Privée Is Shutting Down US Operations

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Just weeks after bashing all the US flash sale site competition in a Fortune profile, Jacques-Antoine Granjon, CEO of Vente-Privée, is downsizing the company and bowing out of the US market. Fortune reports that the American Express-backed Vente-Privée USA will be shut down by the end of the year.

American Express issued a statement on the closing: "Both companies decided that given the road to profitability for vente-privee USA was going to be longer than expected, it was time to focus on other priorities." Strange, considering that Granjon told Fortune earlier that the US market was a goldmine waiting to be tapped, and he expected sales to double from $50 million to $100 million over the next year.

Fortune chalked the closing up to a lack of proper management and constant tension between American Express and Vente-Privée. According to the report, from the time the Vente-Privée USA opened in 2012 to January 2014, all of the members of the original Vente-Privée USA management team had left the company.
· Vente-Privée USA to shut down [Fortune]
· Vente-Privee Founder Thinks He Has the Secret to Flash Sales [Racked]
· Will Gilt Be the Last Flash Sale Site Standing? [Racked]