Lisa Kline’s Online Store: Vaniti

For years, Lisa Kline was known as the queen of the high-end specialty-store scene in Los Angeles.

Now she is hoping to be known as the queen of online fashion shopping.

In December, the astute retailer closed her last bricks and-mortar Lisa Kline store on Robertson Boulevard. It had been part of a mini retail empire of six boutiques that specialized in clothing for either men, women or children. The outposts were frequented by celebrities such as Britney Spears, Tori Spelling, Liv Tyler, Rob Lowe and Kate Beckinsale.

But with one boutique opportunity closing, another is opening up. Sometime this spring, Kline and her various partners are planning to open a new e-marketplace, called Vaniti, that will be like running a boutique on an online fashion street populated by brands approved by Kline. Already, Los Angeles– based contemporary brands Gypsy 05, Piper Gore and Sandast have signed on.

The idea is that Kline invites brands to the site and is the gatekeeper for labels that request to be on the virtual marketplace selling fashion for men, women and children. There also will be vintage fashions, homewares and other lifestyle products.

Kline’s move to the online world came about through a longtime friend. Last year she was contacted by Derek Wall, a veteran of the e-commerce world whom she has known since 1995. He and other Web gurus were developing the online shopping site, using their extensive years of incubating and operating top-notch retail websites that have made millions of dollars.

One of those was BuyNow.com, which was founded by Wall. It became a subsidiary of Buy.com, an online retail giant in Aliso Viejo, Calif. In May 2010, Buy.com was acquired for $250 million by Japanese online marketplace Rakuten Inc.

Wall left BuyNow but remained on the Orange County, Calif., campus of Buy.com, where he and Neel Grover, founder and president of Buy.com, came up with the idea for Vaniti. They brought on Jeff Sherwood as head of branding and marketing and then recruited Kline for her keen eye for fashion.

The headquarters of Vaniti are a separate world from the bustle of boutique retail and the sometimes-provocative style of fashion. Based in an office park, computer programmers sit in cubicles and click away at their keyboards.

Programs used to build Vaniti are proprietary Microsoft programs for cloud computing, Sherwood said. The executives are sure that many of their orders will be made by mobile commerce (by smart phone).

Kline said her new venture’s budget is similar to the flush times of her boutique business. “Open-to-buy is huge. There is no pick and choose,” she said.

On Vaniti, brands will set up a site where they can sell products directly to consumers and post videos, line sheets and other media. They’ll also be responsible for their own sales and fulfillment. Retailers and middlemen will have no place in the e-marketplace’s model. Building the site will be free, but Vaniti will take a sales commission, which has yet to be announced, Wall said.

Shoppers will not only see what’s new from brands. They’ll also be able to find new brands using a search engine.

“It’s emerging, middle-tier companies,” Wall said, describing his first clients. Indie design/craft marketplaces such as Etsy might not be appropriate for these contemporary brands. The bazaar feel of eBay might not be right either.

Vaniti also will differentiate itself with a boutique feel, which fashion shoppers crave, Wall added.

Consumers will be encouraged to set up a profile, where brands and products can be recommended to them. Vaniti will offer free shipping and free returns. It will be crucial for those who want to try clothes on before they make a final purchase. Shoppers can order a few different sizes and styles and then use free shipping to return the clothes that don’t fit.

Online commerce has been growing by leaps and bounds. During a solid, if uneven, holiday season, e-commerce was the only segment that showed big growth. Holiday ecommerce sales for November and December grew to $37.2 billion, a 15 percent jump over the previous year, according to comScore, an e-commerce market-research company in Reston, Va.

And major retailers have been investing heavily in their e-commerce divisions. For example, Seattle-based retailer Nordstrom Inc. said it is increasing its e-commerce investment because of customers’ desire for greater speed and convenience in shopping.

Not every consumer, however, is shopping online, according to a survey from the National Retail Federation Student Association and LIM College in New York. In a recent study it found 68 percent of young adults, ages 18 to 25, preferred to shop in physical stores and try on clothes before making a purchase.

And retail consultant Mercedes Gonzalez believes the shift to online retailing has been overstated. “The consumer price [compares] shops online,” said Gonzalez, who is director of Global Purchasing Companies in New York.

Kline chose to leave bricksand- mortar retail because her business model stopped working. “For 12 years, it was raging out of control,” she said of her successful run. But problems started in 2007, when independent boutiques faced increasing competition from department stores and from brands opening outlet stores. And then there was the online competition.