Dive Brief:

• Newly merged Yoox Net-a-Porter Group said Monday that it would forego the two companies' individual proprietary software platforms in favor of a partnership with IBM.

• The move helps the two luxury web powerhouses, which merged last year, to further integrate their operations. The companies said that Yoox Net-a-Porter will bring ideas and input to IBM for “continuous development of bespoke e-commerce solutions.”

• But sources told Reuters that the move is also squelching IT creativity at the company, prompting key tech people to move on to competitors like Amazon, Farfetch, and UK online marketplace Not-on-the-high-street. 

Dive Insight:

Luxury retailers have only recently seen the light when it comes to e-commerce. For a long time, the Web was viewed by upscale retailers as perhaps too democratic and lacking the kind of opportunity for one-on-one connections with customers (and control of the brand) that they found possible in stores.

Both Yoox and Net-a-Porter, separately and now together as a merged company, have been highly influential in changing all that, proving luxury doesn't have to lose its cachet by moving online. 

Reporting by Reuters suggests that the merged company’s company-wide IT solution may cost it. One source told the news service that the IBM approach undermined creativity to the point that "it is like hiring carpenters to put together an Ikea cupboard.”

But Yoox Net-A-Porter said that the IBM solutions partnership will actually free up in-house IT folks to be even more creative.

“This game-changing alliance will benefit our customers and brand partners, allowing us to push our ambitions even further as we continue to create the future of fashion," Alex Alexander, the merged company’s chief information officer, said in a statement. “The partnership with IBM will enable our exceptionally talented technology team to focus on what it is renowned for: industry-leading innovation, cutting-edge technology and customer-centric solutions.”