Flash sales giant Gilt Groupe has been steadily expanding its flash sales platform into a full-fledged e-commerce and curated content platform that reaches all major retail verticals including fashion, food, men’s clothing, and now the home. Today, Gilt is launching a brand new destination for home accessories and furniture, called Gilt Home.
While Gilt has been offering home goods via its flash sales site, this new platform includes a completely revamped site that adds editorial content and boutiques curated by renowned interior designers. In addition, the site offers four ways to shop: daily flash sales, “shoppable” editorial features, curated collections by top designers, and luxury collections.
Interestingly, Gilt Home will offer both flash sales, which cover designer goods at steep discounts over a limited time, as well as traditional full-priced merchandise that can be purchased at any time. The new site will include over 400 brands across multiple categories and from many designers including Missoni, Anichini, Frette, Matouk, and Michael Aram.
And brands previously only available to the designer trade will now be offered directly to consumers including William Earle, Stark, Kyle Bunting, Ted Boerner, Rotsen, Espacio and A. Rudin, with additional brands being added over the coming months. The launch includes over 2,000 products in the core assortment and new items will be added daily. New flash sales will continue to launch every day at noon.
One of the key elements of Gilt Home is access to designer curated content and pieces. Earlier this year, Gilt actually acquired Decorati, online platform for both interior decorators and consumers who are looking for professional design advice and guidance. Decorati’s founder, interior designer Shane Reilly,, is now a lead designer for Gilt Home. The new platform is also led by General Manager Jason Goldberger, Editorial Director Tom Delavan (formerly editor-at-large of domino magazine), and Divisional Merchandising Manager Alexander Ogof.
The designer boutiques incorporate a curated assortment of products, original lifestyle content and a “shop the room” experience. The product selection will include items from the designers’ own personal inventory and existing Gilt products, with a focus on items exclusive to Gilt.
Similar to Gilt Taste, the flash sales giant is also trying to bridge the gap between e-commerce and editorial with the launch of Home. Editorial content will revolve around how-to’s, trend reports, advice-related columns and in-depth features on designers.
The success of One Kings Lane has shown that a flash sales site for home décor, furnishings and accessories with a niche model can bring in revenue and a major valuation. The Kleiner Perkins-backed site also offers editorial content, and designer curated sales. And Fab.com, a flash sales site for design items, is also growing fast.
Clearly, there is definitely room for a few competitors in this space. And Gilt has shown that the blend of editorial, curated e-commerce and flash sales can work for certain verticals, exemplified by the company’s travel vertical Jetsetter.
