Social commerce platform Fancy, a startup that was a shoppable Pinterest before Pinterest itself became shoppable, has now added support for same-day delivery within its mobile application and website, allowing shoppers to order things they find to receive them on the same day by 5 PM. Fancy says the feature is available in 100 cities around the world, 61 of which are live in the U.S., and 39 across the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, with more on the way.
Fancy first began trialing same-day delivery this summer, in New York. The option was initially available in parts of Manhattan before rolling out to all five boroughs.
As the company explains, customers placing orders before 12 PM local time will receive them the same day. If those orders are being shipped outside the select cities where same-day delivery is currently supported, the deliveries will be overnighted and then delivered the following day. Orders placed after 12 PM will also be handled the following day.
Asked how the company was managing the logistics of same-day deliveries, a company spokesperson said that Fancy is now working with a network of different couriers in various cities around the world.
Same-day orders are not cheap – according to its website, Fancy charges a flat fee of $30.00 per item for those in need of their Gucci zip backpack or Nike+ SportWatch without a wait. Fancy customers may not mind, though, as the service has always catered more to the high-end shopper with its “best of the best” curated selection of goods.
The company tells us that since launching the service in a more limited fashion earlier this summer, the trend for customers using same-day delivery is very positive. “We have existing customers who shop with us daily and needed this option,” a spokesperson explained. The company also hopes that those who shopped more occasionally will now also find same-day delivery as a compelling new reason to buy.
Fancy is not the only company offering same-day deliveries these days – Walmart has been working on a same-day delivery service (including groceries) called “Walmart To Go;” Google has Google Shopping Express; eBay launched eBay Now; and various startups like TaskRabbit, Postmates, Instacart, WunWun and others are also getting into the game.
Fancy claims to have over 10 million users, up from 8 million earlier this year. When the company raised an additional $53 million from investors this summer, Fancy then said it was seeing $100,000 per day in sales, as well as 8 million registered users and over 12 million unique visitors across all platforms in the previous month. Today, Fancy still says it earning around $100,000 in sales per day, and very recently, it had its biggest day of sales yet, where it made $200,000 in one day following the launch of same-day delivery.
It’s difficult to validate Fancy’s claims using third-party tools. The company changed its domain name (URL) mid-year, and has customers scattered around the world. And many analytics companies focus on U.S.-only traffic. However, data from SimilarWeb doesn’t show Fancy with even a million visitors online, and AppAnnie shows the Fancy app in the U.S. ranked in the 400’s in “Lifestyle.” This month, it has reached the top 100 in “Lifestyle” in around half a dozen countries, but not the U.S.
That said, even if Fancy’s customer base is not large, they may be more likely to order things on demand because they have the disposable income to do so. With things like $5,000+ bags and $2,000 coats for sale on its site, it only takes a handful of regular shoppers to bring in the sales Fancy claims.