No.1 Unbelievable Designer Discounts: Flash Sale Sites and How to Shop Them - Women Compus - Women Campus
These adorable Tracy Reese dresses are under $100 each on Gilt Groupe. No Joke.
Online sample sale sites such as Gilt Groupe, Rue La La and HauteLook bring sales that were once only accessible to select groups in New York and Los Angeles to the whole country. These sites are retail genius: they capitalize on the game of bargain hunting by offering each sale for only a short period of time and displaying sold out items along with available items so shoppers can see the deals they couldn’t get. Many have limits on how long items can be in your shopping cart, too, and offer elaborate email and phone reminder systems so their customers never miss a sale. All of this encourages shoppers to adopt a Black Friday-level of shopping frenzy every day; to be at their computers ready to pounce when sales open and buy merchandise as quickly as possible once they do.
Yet these sites are not chaotic discount stores—they are members-only outlets that sell designer fashion brands. Flash sale sites make recession-omics shopping chic and very exciting. Susan Lyne, CEO of Gilt Groupe admits that the main draw of the site is a “heightened sense of entertainment and competition,” and that it has been so successful largely because it functioned as “a safety net for designers” during the recession. In fact, many department stores have begun to mimic the format of flash sale sites in an effort to drive up sales. Neiman Marcus, for one, has bi-weekly “Mid-Day Dash” sales during which select merchandise is 50% off or more.
Flash sale sites provide such a successful business model because they offer shoppers something new and un-ignorable: authentic, current designer fashion for a fraction of the price. Below is an all-out guide to the best online sample sale sites. We highlight the general benefits of each site and point out ways in which each is unique from its competitors so you can easily and happily cash in on the incredible deals these sites have to offer.
Alexander Wang Outfit on Gilt
Founded by eBay executive Alexis Maybank and Louis Vuitton merchandiser Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, Gilt Groupe was a pioneer of the fashion flash-sale format and is still the most popular among luxury bargain shoppers: it grew by nearly 600% in 2009 and was named to Fast Company’s 2010 list of most innovative companies. Gilt Groupe offers 36-hour sales on designers such as Alexander Wang, Alexander McQueen and Burberry. The discounts are amazing—as I was writing this article, there was a sale offering Moschino handbags that retailed at over $1,000 for just $99.
Shopping Tips
Gilt Groupe only allows customers to hold items in their carts for 10 minutes during which time other shoppers can get on a waitlist to buy the item after the time is expired, so there is no guarantee customers will get the items they want if they don’t purchase within those 10 minutes. Gilt accepts returns for store credit only, and only allows clothes and shoes to be returned—all accessories and leather goods are final sale only. Still, return shipping is free, and members get free shipping on an order for every ten friends they recruit to Gilt Groupe.
