What: The luxury e-tailer is introducing a new model that will see it hold inventory from brands without buying it and still get to carefully curate its offering to shoppers.

Why it is important: Mytheresa introduces drop shipping, but the retailer will hold inventory in its warehouse instead of the brands.

Instead of buying from them wholesale, Mytheresa will start holding inventory from select vendors in its warehouses and ship directly to customers who make a purchase. The inventory, however, will still belong to the brand. Mytheresa, meanwhile, will book a fee on the sales. What makes the arrangement novel is Mytheresa will still be curating its selection of items as it normally would. It calls it a curated platform model.

“It’s clunky,” chief executive Michael Kliger says of the name, “but we just wanted to really say it’s not a marketplace, it’s not e-concession, it’s another version.”

So far, Mytheresa isn’t saying which brands it will work with on these terms, but it expects less than 20% of its total merchandise sales will come from the new model to start. Gradually, that level will rise, but the company doesn’t expect it to surpass 35% in the long term.

As Mytheresa sees it, the arrangement will give it access to more inventory and allow for in-season replenishment of items that are selling well, helping to fuel its growth without it having to buy the inventory itself.

Mytheresa’s New Model for Working With Brands