Yoox Net-A-Porter Group launches Tech Hub in West London

Notes to editors

YNAP and Mobile

YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP has always been at the forefront of mobile innovation and was the first company to have a retail app on the iOS App store. Mobile accounts for around 50% of YNAP’s sales. Mobile customers are 1.5 times more loyal, twice as engaged and spend three times more. Through mobile we offer customers beautifully designed, engaging content combined with effortless sharing options.

Now, the ambition is to move from mobile-first to mobile-only. In line with this, all global office-based staff have received an iPhone equipped with a suite of new iOS apps designed in collaboration with Apple and IBM. YNAP is rapidly develop bespoke applications for staff, boosting productivity and allowing them to work flexibly across devices to enhance the customer experience. Personal shoppers are the first to benefit, with applications such as access to inventory information on the go and the ability to take card payments from customers via mobile.

YNAP and Artificial Intelligence

YNAP has been experimenting with Artificial Intelligence (AI) since 2015. AI has the potential to transform areas like natural language search, image recognition and styling recommendations to offer an increasingly personalized service to the customer.

AI innovations which are being tested include: virtual personal styling, a system that learns what type of clothes

combine well and can cross-reference suggestions against customer purchase history; visual search, makes photographs instantly shoppable and tailors recommendations to the customer’s preferences; natural language search, including surfacing results relevant to the customer’s location, size and stock availability.

YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP

YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP is the world’s leading online luxury fashion retailer. The Group is a Global company with Anglo-Italian roots, the result of a game-changing merger, which in October 2015, brought together YOOX GROUP and THE NET -A-PORTER GROUP; the two companies had revolutionized the luxury fashion industry since their birth in 2000.

YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP is a unique business with an unrivalled offering including multi-brand in-season online stores NET-A-PORTER and MR PORTER, and multi-brand off-season online stores YOOX and THE OUTNET, as well as numerous ONLINE FLAGSHIP STORES, all "Powered by YNAP". Through a joint venture established in 2012, YOOX NET -A-PORTER GROUP has partnered with Kering to manage the ONLINE FLAGSHIP STORES of several of the French group's luxury brands.

Uniquely positioned in the high growth online luxury sector, YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP has an unrivalled client base of more than 2.9 million high-spending customers, 29 million monthly unique visitors worldwide and combined 2016 net revenues of €1.9 billion. The Group has offices and operations in the United States, Europe, Japan, China and Hong Kong and delivers to more than 180 countries around the world. YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange as YNAP.

For further information: www.ynap.com

Grimshaw

Grimshaw is an award-winning, international architectural practice with offices in New York, London, Melbourne, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur and Doha, employing over 400 staff. Committed to providing architecture of the highest calibre, the company’s work is characterised by strong conceptual legibility, innovation and a rigorous approach to detailing, underpinned by the principles of enduring and sustainable design. Complete architectural services are provided: master planning, feasibility studies and planning applications through tendering to construction and inspections on site. Grimshaw’s international portfolio covers all major sectors, and has been honoured with over 170 international design awards including the prestigious Lubetkin Prize.

White City Place

White City Place is a new business district covering 17 acres in regenerated White City. Totalling 900,000 square feet of office accommodation, it is designed for the modern creative business with 3 buildings - The MediaWorks, home to the YNAP Tech Hub, The WestWorks and Garden House.

Major landscaping and infrastructure works are nearing completion to significantly improve the public realm on site including gardens and a central square whilst work is also underway to reinforce the connections with the nearby underground stations (White City & Wood Lane), Television Centre and Imperial College White City Campus.

White City Place is at the heart of an £8 billion 15-year regeneration of the wider White City area, which will form a new hub of activity, creativity and academia in west London. A thriving neighbourhood sees the arrival of new restaurants, hotel and members’ club by Soho House, 2,500 new homes and more than two million square feet of office space. A new John Lewis will open in 2018 in an expanded Westfield which will boast more than 420 stores, and there will be 30 acres of public open space.

White City Place was the original home of the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908, which created a vast complex of white pavilions and pleasure parks in Wood Lane and which gave the area its name of 'White City'. The site then provided the home for the 1908 Olympics stadium, the first Olympic Games to be held in the UK.