If you are like me and love to shop for special deals online, thinking you are smarter than the average consumer because you know how to find the best prices on the best quality items, chances are you are probably a member of a flash sale shopping site. These are sites that often offer clothes, furniture, shoes, home-ware and much more at amazing prices during your lunch hour. The sale starts at a specific hour for a limited time and is sure to sell out within a couple of minutes. This strategy has turned discount shopping into an online game and everyone wants to be the best player.
Because many of these sites are “Invite Only” with special incentives for friends to invite their network, the “virality” of these sites tend to be off the charts. Not only is there an exclusivity in becoming a member, but there is purpose in sharing with your friends. Being a member of these sites may be as rewarding as making a purchase – even without spending dollars one can appreciate window shopping and share essential deals with friends. Making these shopping sites the best thing to happen to e-commerce since PayPal.
The Top Flash Sale Sites:
- Gilt - from Wikipedia; Gilt Groupe visitors must be members in order to view sales. Membership can be requested at the website but otherwise it is invite-only. New sales typically start at Noon ET, last 36–48 hours, and feature merchandise from a single brand or small groups of brands at prices 50%-70% off of manufacturer’s suggested retail prices. An email announcing the start of each day’s sales is sent to all members shortly before the sale starts, and orders are taken on a first come, first-served basis.
- Rue-la-la
- iDeeli
- Billion Dollar Babes
- Woot from Wikipedia; Woot sites offer one original t-shirt per day, two selections of wine per week, one children’s item per day, and one closeout deal per day in cooperation with Yahoo! Shopping. On June 30, 2010, Woot announced an agreement to be acquired by Amazon.com.
- BTrendie - Flash Sales for moms especially with small children at their heels. Emily Rayson and Mitchell Wolfe founded bTrendie to bring today’s most sought-after products (the ones you can’t find just anywhere) at amazing savings to a one-stop shop on the Web.
- JetSetter - From the makers of Gilt, “Jetsetter is a private online community that provides members with insider access, expert knowledge, and exclusive deals on the world’s greatest vacations.”
The sense of urgency in taking advantage of a unique discount constantly is not new – Ebay has been around for 15 years! It is no surprise that Gilt.com is the brainchild of an early Ebay employee. However, these Flash shopping sites have evolved with the need for Social Networking to be involved in every user experience. Sites like Gilt have embraced applications for the iPad and the iPhone and sites like Ruelala.com have also enabled SMS text message reminders to allow members to set alarms for sales on a daily basis. We also see that the trend iis moving beyond luxury-exclusive shopping and into other niche categories such as vacations, child products, men’s products, furniture and winery.
Keys to Success for Flash Sales:
1. Create Urgency with Countdowns on sales.
2. Ensure Exclusivity and demand users to become members
3. Make it EASY for members to share and invite their network
4. Make shopping a competition
5. Include a Social Friendly landing page
Flash Sale sites are in their prime and generating a huge amount of sales. The sense of urgency to buy these products is immense! Everyone is buying up these sample items regardless of a recession. Can this sense of necessity be transfered to all e-commerce sites? Could implementing that strategy on your site be wise? There are many pros and cons depending on the type of site you have, but adapting to the trends in e-commerce have proven to be a WIN for many sites.
Let’s talk about this on our BlueGlass Facebook FanPage!
I must admit Im a sucker for guilt/jet setter myself. I wasn’t aware of these other ones I’ll have to check them out. Timely article you’ve got here
@Kris – Thanks!!
Funny that you spelled it “Guilt” when it’s Gilte – great play on words there
These sites aren’t in Flash, they are AJAX, some have small flash banners for ads but that doesn’t make it a flash site.
disregard – read title wrong
Great article and very timely I might add! My wife just joined RueLaLa and she was showing me how it works, they have got “creating urgency” down to a science, creating anticipation with “boutique opens” etc. Cleverly they add how many of a certain item is left to buy, adding just another element into the mix, the “oh I have to get this there’s only one left”. Very clever and it’s working especially in this economy!
@Nick – RueLaLa is the site I often make purchases on. They have a time limit for how long you can keep an item in your cart. How dangerous! Makes you want to check out right away!
Awesome efforts that you possess here. You need to keep up the wonderful work.For certain i will definitely return to get schooled.