Moda Operandi: How a lean team of two drives 51% YoY dropship growth across 300+ luxury brands
Scaling high-end curation without the overhead of traditional inventory using the Mirakl Dropship Platform
Founded in 2010, Moda Operandi is a New York-based eCommerce retailer and a global leader in fashion discovery. Carrying more than 1,000 brands across fashion, fine jewelry, home and beauty, the platform is renowned for its innovative "trunkshow" model, which allows customers to shop "what's new and what's next" directly from designers' unreleased runway collections. By blending high-touch curation with cutting-edge technology, Moda Operandi provides its global audience with exclusive access to the world’s leading emerging designers and established luxury brands.
51%
YoY dropship revenue growth in 2025
75%+
onboarding time reduction from the previous 5–6 month cycle
300+
brands onboarded and managed by a core team of just two people, providing a massive, inventory-less expansion of their digital catalog
The challenge: Overcoming technical and operational rigidity
For a luxury leader like Moda Operandi, growth cannot come at the expense of the brand experience. Traditionally, scaling meant increasing wholesale buys — a model that requires significant upfront capital, warehouse space and the persistent risk of markdown inventory.
However, scaling via dropship presented its own set of hurdles. Moda Operandi operates on a custom-built eCommerce platform, which lacked the flexibility of modern out-of-the-box solutions. This legacy infrastructure created several critical bottlenecks:
Inflexible lead times: The custom platform could not support different lead times for different products, making it nearly impossible to provide customers with accurate delivery transparency across hundreds of disparate vendors.
Manual data management: Before Mirakl, the team relied on massive Excel files and manual email back-and-forths to manage product data, imagery and tariff codes.
Slow speed-to-market: These manual processes resulted in onboarding cycles that lasted up to six months, preventing the team from responding quickly to seasonal trends.
Assortment restrictions: Without a scalable way to test new categories like home and beauty, the team was limited by their own wholesale budget.
"Dropship is this amazing solution for both the retailer and the brand. The brand feels like they have more control, while we don't need to put all that upfront investment into the inventory."
The solution: A unified dropship platform
Moda Operandi turned to the Mirakl Dropship Platform to automate the heavy lifting of supplier management and bypass the limitations of their custom back-end. By moving away from spreadsheets, Moda Operandi empowered a lean team of two to manage the entire ecosystem.
The transition focused on four key pillars:
Frictionless onboarding: Utilizing Mirakl’s flexible connection methods (eCommerce connectors, EDI, API and portal) to meet brands where they are and slashing the time it takes to get products live.
Curation at scale: Implementing a daily approval workflow for products and pricing. Moda’s core team efficiently reviews SKUs, ensuring every item meets their strict aesthetic and standards.
Lead time transparency: Using Mirakl to manage complex shipping patterns. By setting specific SLAs (e.g., 24-hour order acceptance, 48-hour shipping), Moda uses the platform to ensure shipment visibility and SLA adherence with brands.
Operational control: Giving brands the ability to manage their own styles and prices instantly. Brands can pull a style from the site in real-time if they are over-selling, providing a sense of security that has become central to Moda’s brand pitches.
"I truly believe in that sustainability layer — we don't all end up with markdown inventory. With dropship, we're talking one inventory pool and brands can plan so much better."
The results: Inventory-less growth and unmatched efficiency
Since partnering with Mirakl, Moda Operandi has transformed its business model. While wholesale receipts have remained flat, the company has pivoted its investment toward dropship as the primary engine for growth.
1. Accelerated speed-to-market
By implementing a structured onboarding sequence within Mirakl’s platform, Moda Operandi slashed onboarding times by more than 75%.
2. Delivering a premium customer experience
Despite the dropship model, Moda Operandi maintains full ownership of the customer journey. All returns flow back through Moda’s warehouse for quality assurance before returning to the brand. This ensures that the "luxury" feel remains intact even when the inventory doesn't sit on their shelves.
3. Optimized profitability and category testing
Dropship has allowed Moda to dominate niche categories like rugs, which became a top-selling category after the team used Mirakl to test the assortment without upfront inventory costs. Similarly, they have expanded their beauty offering, showcasing every single shade variant of a product — something they previously couldn't afford to do via wholesale.
4. Empowering brands with operational control
The ability for luxury brands to maintain control over their digital presence has become Moda’s most effective recruiting tool. Brands love the autonomy to submit SKU changes directly in the platform, which has helped Moda successfully onboard over 300 brands in total.
"We're keeping wholesale receipts flat year-over-year, and really investing to grow via dropship. To all of our new brands, the first thing we suggest is: 'Would you be able to do dropship?'"
Future-proofing luxury assortment
By leveraging the Mirakl Dropship Platform, Moda Operandi has proven that high-end curation and rapid scale are not mutually exclusive. With a 51% YoY growth rate and a significantly leaner operational footprint, they have built a future-proof assortment strategy that prioritizes sustainability, profitability and the customer experience.
Learn how Mirakl can help you accelerate dropship growth by contacting us today.
