A small article on private sales, not because I’ve been a graphic designer during three months for the second biggest website in this sector in France but because it’s an important internet phenomenon over the internet specifically in my country, they are the most beautiful e-commerce websites, and everybody doesn’t know about them. Private, or flash sales, is a French phenomenon which was launched by the leader vente-privee.com. It’s an online store accessible only to the people who have subscribed to the website, with famous brands for a determined period. Sales are announced through newsletters linking to beautiful motion design animations advertising on the brand which is going to be sold at that point, the kind of products you will find, and the dates. When that time lapse is finished everything (or nearly everything) which was being sold is sold, buyers feeling somewhat privileged. That’s because the stocks are small but for a specific time-lapse, thus enabling very attractive prices on products which generally can be very expensive. They generally sell clothes, but the leader recently surprised everybody by selling… cars. And they sold all of their stock! Leader who considers it has enough clients to stop accepting subscriptions to its website, unless you are “introduced” by another user. Yet another way of giving the impression of being privileged. With that objective in mind, all of the graphic design is top of range, whether it’s the motion design of the announcements or the websites themselves. Just look at vente-privee.com’s homepage to get an idea, especially keeping in mind they change it every month… A lot of this companies are opening branches abroad at this time. Some of these websites: vente-privee.com, the leader. AchatVIP.com, the second biggest. Fruitrouge.com: not one of the leaders yet but they have put a special attention to aesthetics.