E-commerce startup One Kings Lane is one of the first flash sales sites to partner up with a digital catalog company – in its case, the startup is joining forces with Catalog Spree, which lets shoppers browse on both the iPad and web. This is also Catalog Spree’s first deal with a non-traditional retailer, the company says. Typically, the startup works with brands and retailers like Nordstrom, Eddie Bauer, West Elm, Macy’s, Patagonia, and hundreds of others, aggregating and organizing their content into one app.
The deal will see One Kings Lane’s flash sales updated on a daily basis in the digital catalog, the same as they are on the web.
This may be the first time that a flash sales site has appeared in a digital catalog for iPad. However, just yesterday, a startup called Flit launched what could also be described as an iPad catalog app of sorts…if, perhaps, your definition of “catalog” is a littler looser. Flit serves as a way to search across 1,000 stores, but it doesn’t offer a page-turning interface that gives the feeling of flipping through a digital book. But it, too, aggregates flash sale sites including Gilt, in addition to traditional stores. The difference between Flit and the new One Kings Lane partnership is that the former is offers a utility on top of e-commerce based shopping, while the latter is an official deal to work together on integration.
The digital catalogs space has seen a lot of movement in recent months, especially after Apple gave “Catalogs” their own category listing in the App Store in March. Other recent moves here include Google’s debut of “Google Catalogs” at the beginning of October, and this week’s relaunch of Shopkick’s shopping rewards app, which now includes digital catalogs.
You can browse the digital catalog version of One Kings Lane here, or download Catalog Spree for iPad here.