THE E-COMMERCE SITE FOR EVERYDAY DESIGN WARES IS GOING ANALOG WITH A NEW BRICK-AND-MORTAR RETAIL STORE--ONE OF A FEW NEW TRICKS THE COMPANY'S FOUNDERS ARE TESTING AS THEY ATTEMPT TO CONQUER THE WORLD'S DESIGN MARKET.
Fab's brand has become as synonymous with the term "pivot" as the e-commerce company's founders want it to be with "design." In three years, Bradford Shellhammer and Jason Goldberg have taken Fab through two failed gay-centric ventures and a successful flash-sale e-commerce business, expanding to 28 countries and about 600 employees along the way.
Goldberg says Fab's first store will be more like a showroom, where people can come to see products in person and sample materials (Click Image To Enlarge)
Interior view of Fab's new retail showroom store located in Hamburg, Germany (Click Image To Enlarge)
This is the first of multiple Fab retail stores that will open within the year, the second of which will also be in Germany, Goldberg says (Click Image To Enlarge)
So, naturally, the pair decided the time was ripe for another pivot.
Goldberg and Shellhammer unveiled the big details:
- "Ikea and Amazon big" ecommerce website.
- Overhauled suite of web and mobile apps.
- New lines of "Exclusively Fab" products forged by an in-house design team of about 10 Fab-brand product designers and partners such as the Andy Warhol Foundation.
- A new "Designed By You" option for shoppers to custom-order products.
- Fab's first physical retail store in Hamburg, Germany.
The pair also announced Fab has acquired Massivkonzept, a German online custom furniture maker. Massivkonzept's custom-order tools will anchor the new Designed By You Fab channel, an outlet where shoppers--just in the EU to start--can order products to their exact specifications. Shellhammer says Designed By You will start off with mostly wood products, such as tables and shelving, as well as some upholstery and modular seating options.
The new Fab showroom in Hamburg, Germany, is a former showroom of German furniture maker Massivkonzept, which the company just acquired (Click Image To Enlarge)
Interior view of Fab's new retail showroom store located in Hamburg, Germany (Click Image To Enlarge)
Two-thirds of Fab's daily sales aren't from flash sales, but instead from search and browsing. So the new web and mobile apps feature beefed-up search functionality (Click Image To Enlarge)
Custom-order products will complement Fab's new push for its in-house designed products, which will initially include mostly textiles and tabletop items, but will soon also include luggage and furniture, Shellhammer says. He adds he expects to see 3,000 in-house designed products go to market by the end of the year.
Fab has created a designated 'Fab Outlet' space for products sold at deeper discounts. Goldberg says a 'small single-digit' percent of products sold on Fab fall in this category (Click Image To Enlarge)
Fab's new web and mobile apps now incl a billboard that constantly rotates out products based on your personal purchase and like history, and a 'trending' ticker that reflects what's popular right now (Click Image To Enlarge)
Fab is pushing exclusive products through high-profile partnerships with collaborators such as Blu Dot and the Andy Warhol Foundation. The company also has an in-house team of about 10 product designers (Click Image To Enlarge)
Sample materials for custom-ordered products, as well as other Fab wares, will also be on display at the company's Hamburg showroom, the first of multiple physical stores that will open this year (including a second store in Germany, Goldberg confirms). He also says Fab will experiment with various store concepts to evoke the same delight and kitsch of its online shopping experience. There's no word of a U.S. store yet, but considering Fab's international sales skyrocketed to 40% of its total in April, it's not too surprising the company has its sights set on maturing its global brand.
Fab also recently announced its first design competition.
All of these bring Fab closer to the founders' ultimate goal: to become "the world's #1 design store." What does that mean? For starters, Goldberg believes "with certainty" that Fab will hit "double" its 2012 sales, which means the company will total roughly $300 million.
Courtesy of an article dated April 30, 2013 appearing in Fast Company
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