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	<title>VentureBeat &#187; flash sale</title>
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		<title>VentureBeat &#187; flash sale</title>
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<copyright>Copyright 2013, VentureBeat</copyright>		<item>
		<title>Furniture in a flash: Wayfair introduces 72-hour deals on home goods</title>
		<link>http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/20/furniture-in-a-flash-wayfair-introduces-72-hour-deals-on-home-goods/</link>
		<comments>http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/20/furniture-in-a-flash-wayfair-introduces-72-hour-deals-on-home-goods/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Feb 2013 21:33:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rebecca Grant</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Lifestyle]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[daily deal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[e commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flash sale]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[home goods]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://venturebeat.com/?p=624906</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>E-commerce startup Wayfair introduces Daily Fair, a new flash sale feature that offers large discounts on home goods, if you are willing to act&#160;fast.</p>
<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=venturebeat.com&#038;blog=342986&#038;post=624906&#038;subd=venturebeat&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/20/furniture-in-a-flash-wayfair-introduces-72-hour-deals-on-home-goods/screen-shot-2013-02-20-at-1-33-16-pm/" rel="attachment wp-att-625463"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-625463" alt="Screen Shot 2013-02-20 at 1.33.16 PM" src="http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/screen-shot-2013-02-20-at-1-33-16-pm.png?w=1024&#038;h=717" width="1024" height="717" /></a>Wayfair launched a new flash sale feature today called <a href="http://www.wayfair.com/dailyfair/" target="_blank">Daily Fair</a>.</p>
<p>The now 10-year-old and extremely well-capitalized startup is one of the largest online retailers of home goods and furnishings, with a selection of more than five million products. Daily Fair will feature seven new sales a day, seven days a week, which will each last for 72 hours &#8212; and offer up to 70 percent off.</p>
<p>Flash sale sites took off in 2012, offering an exciting new e-commerce business model that attracted millions of consumers, millions of dollars in revenue, and millions of dollars in venture capital. <a href="www.zulily.com">Zulily</a> and <a href="http://www.onekingslane.com" target="_blank">One King&#8217;s Lane</a> raised <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/15/zulily-rockets-to-billion-dollar-valuation-with-85m-from-andreessen-horowitz/">$85 million</a> and <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/11/one-kings-lane-funding/">$50 million</a>, respectively, from big name investors, and <a href="http://www.ruelala.com" target="_blank">Rue La La</a>, <a href="http://www.gilt.com" target="_blank">Gilt</a>, and <a href="http://www.fab.com" target="_blank">Fab.com</a> have large, active, and spending user bases.</p>
<p>Wayfair&#8217;s new feature is not just an attempt to hop on the trend wagon &#8212; it&#8217;s  the latest step in Wayfair&#8217;s quest to be definite online destination for home goods. During an interview with VentureBeat, founder and CEO Niraj Shah said that e-commerce only makes up 6 percent to 10 percent of total retail sales for home goods &#8212; and this number is going up.</p>
<p>&#8220;Most people don&#8217;t buy home goods until they are 30 years old and have a house or are married with kids.&#8221; Shah said. &#8220;The group that is at this stage in their life now is the first to grow up with the internet, so their willingness to buy online is high compared to other folks and it goes up every year. E-commerce keeps on getting better and better and people feel more comfortable making purchases online. We want people to start by looking here, because we have everything. There is a pretty big opening here and we are going to run with it.&#8221;</p>
<p>Convenience is also a key factor here. Many people (present company included) don&#8217;t want to dedicate their nights or weekends to furniture shopping. With online ordering, consumers can peruse multiple options, make comparisons, and have purchases delivered to their door without schlepping from place to place.</p>
<p>The flash sale feature is intended to add an additional layer of convenience, as well as attract a different category of user. Wayfair&#8217;s massive selection can be overwhelming, and flash sales are appealing to people who don&#8217;t want to hunt for a specific item.</p>
<p>Wayfair claims to be the first mass retailer to integrate daily flash sales into its business model. The promotion will go out at noon each day, and will feature products linked by theme or category, as well as a selection curated by bloggers, designers, and other &#8220;influencers from the home community.&#8221;</p>
<p>Shah founded Wayfair back in 2002, long before e-commerce was as mainstream as it is now. Back then, it was an amalgamation of small, item-specific sites that in 2011 became an integrated entity known as Wayfair. To support this transition, the company took institutional money for the first time and has<a href="http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/10/wayfair-raises-36-million/"> raised more than $200 million to support its growth.</a> Wayfair broke $600 million in sales in 2012 and sees over 12 million visitors a month. This success is largely due to focusing on customer needs and the overall user experience.</p>
<p>&#8220;People want their homes to be unique and feel personal,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They want a very big selection so they can find the exact thing they want at a good price, and &#8216;best-sellers&#8217; aren&#8217;t really a priority. You can&#8217;t inventory everything in a warehouse and turn the inventory. We amassed the selection all-in-one place by working with 5,000 different manufacturers, and then build the supply chain and transportation delivery network to deliver it to the customer.&#8221;</p>
<p>Competitors include traditional retailers like Target, Sears, and Pottery Barn as well as e-commerce giant Amazon. The &#8220;home goods&#8221; sector includes everything from extremely expensive designer couches to cheap lighting, and Wayfair attempts to bring it all together under one digital roof. The main challenge left? Building any furniture that comes unassembled. But at least there are other services for that.</p>
<br />Filed under: <a href='http://venturebeat.com/category/lifestyle/'>Lifestyle</a>  <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=venturebeat.com&#038;blog=342986&#038;post=624906&#038;subd=venturebeat&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Choose your own sale with LuxeYard, launching today</title>
		<link>http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/23/luxeyard-5m/</link>
		<comments>http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/23/luxeyard-5m/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:01:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Sarah Mitroff</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Deals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[daily deals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[e commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flash sale]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[home furnishings]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social e-commerce]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://venturebeat.com/?p=381054</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<p>Flash sale and daily deals sites have gained a lot of popularity in the last year with Groupon, Gilt, and Fab.com bringing consumers discounted products and services.</p>
<p>LuxeYard, a new flash sale site focused on luxury home furnishings and decor,&#160;&#8230;</p>
<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=venturebeat.com&#038;blog=342986&#038;post=381054&#038;subd=venturebeat&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://venturebeat.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/luxeyard-5m/shutterstock_92506288/" rel="attachment wp-att-381192" target="_blank"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-381192" title="shutterstock_92506288" src="http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/shutterstock_92506288.jpg?w=300&#038;h=212" alt="" width="300" height="212" /></a>Flash sale and daily deals sites have gained a lot of popularity in the last year with <a href="http://www.groupon.com/" target="_blank" target="_blank">Groupon</a>, <a href="http://www.gilt.com/" target="_blank" target="_blank">Gilt</a>, and <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/08/fab-com-40m-series-b/" target="_blank">Fab.com</a> bringing consumers discounted products and services.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.luxeyard.com/" target="_blank" target="_blank">LuxeYard</a>, a new flash sale site focused on luxury home furnishings and decor, delivers a fresh feature to the daily deal market: it lets its customers request which items they want offered at a discount. The site launched Monday evening with $3.5 million in funding from private investors.</p>
<p>The company has two notable features not seen on other flash sale sites: Concierge Buying and Group Buy. Concierge Buying lets customers request items they&#8217;d like to buy at a discounted price. Any product can be submitted and voted on by the LuxeYard community and the most popular products will be offered for sale. LuxeYard works with the manufacturer to make the product available to its customers. If LuxeYard can&#8217;t offer the exact item, it will find a substitute of equal or higher quality.</p>
<p>LuxeYard&#8217;s Group Buy feature lowers the price of an item as more people purchase it. By broadcasting the discount on social platforms such as Facebook, customers can drive up the demand for the deal and lower the purchase price. Once the deal is over, everyone who purchased the product pays the lowest final price.</p>
<p>“We are using this round of funding for a number of important aspects of our startup. Because we are a new kind of flash sale site that fills two significant holes in our industry – community and personalization – we are focusing our dollars on parts of our site that are giving our members a unique experience,&#8221; said LuxeYard CEO Braden Richter in a statement to VentureBeat. &#8220;To make this happen, we are also spending on a number of other parts of our business, including software development, focus on getting member bases up, accounting and hiring new members for our team, as we expect to grow in the same vein as flash sale sites have been.”</p>
<p><a href="http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/19/one-kings-lane-funding-40m/" target="_blank">One King&#8217;s Lane</a> operates in the same space as LuxeYard, offering home furnishings at similar discounts. LuxeYard is relying on its Concierge Buying and Group Buy features to set itself apart from One King&#8217;s Lane and its other competition.</p>
<div>
<p>LuxeYard offers discounts up to 70 percent off on luxury home decor and furnishing items &#8212; think high-end lamps, rugs, dishes, and furniture. Every item is shipped directly from the manufacturer &#8212; LuxeYard doesn&#8217;t keep any inventory, which keeps its operating costs low. Like most deal sites, you must become a member to see each deal and make purchases, but membership is free.</p>
<p>LuxeYard was founded in 2011 and is based in Marina Del Ray, California. It currently has a team of 30 employees.</p>
<p><em>Luxury furniture image via <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-92506288/stock-photo-interior-hall-luxury-style-black-and-white.html?src=e7643599b0ff736a796d7c1cd55010a6-1-3" target="_blank" target="_blank">Shutterstock</a> </em></p>
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<br />Filed under: <a href='http://venturebeat.com/category/deals/'>Deals</a>  <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=venturebeat.com&#038;blog=342986&#038;post=381054&#038;subd=venturebeat&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></content:encoded>
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	<enclosure url="http://venturebeat.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/luxeyardlady-tn.jpg?w=140" /><source url="http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/23/luxeyard-5m/">Choose your own sale with LuxeYard, launching today</source>
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