You are hereRowNine Aims To Create A Pandora For Flash Sales
RowNine Aims To Create A Pandora For Flash Sales
There are a plethora of flash sales sites on the web, with Gilt, Rue La La, HauteLook and Ideeli and many others offering members 50 to 70 percent off retail goods. With so many competitors, newbie RowNine is hoping to differentiate itself by offering a more personalized platform that allows users to customize the types of clothing, handbags and accessories that are delivered to them. RowNine has also added the ability to Like items on the site and push them to Facebook.
On RowNine, users will now be prompted to specify what types of clothing, brands, bags, and more items they are interested in purchasing. Customers can indicate their preferences when perusing offers and merchandise on the RowNine Website by giving a “thumbs up or down” to build their preference profile.
Based on this interests, RowNine will then source and recommend customized products to the users. RowNine’s recommendation engine will integrate a shopper’s clickstream and purchase history as well as group matching with customers with similar interests to deliver targeted recommendations. Customers will also have the ability to publish products and purchases they like via their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
RowNine’s CEO and co-founder Lawrence Kosick likens the site to the Pandora for flash sales. While the space is competitive, the model is certainly ambitious and could prove to be attractive to shoppers who want more customized offerings from online sample sales. One of the biggest challenges for RowNine will be to attract users; the site only has a hundred thousand members as compared to Gilt, HauteLook and others which have subscriber bases in the millions. But the online sample sale space is still growing, and clearly there’s room for a number of strong players.
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Flash sales site HauteLook has raised $31 million in Series C funding, led by Insight Venture Partners. The startup previously raised $10 million in Series B funding last year.
Beyond the Rack, a members-only sample sale site, has raised another round of funding today. The startup has just announced a $12 million round of funding from Highland Capital Partners and BDC Venture Capital. This brings the Beyond The Rack’s total funding to $16.5 million.
Flash sales site Ideeli, which was founded in 2007, has raised $41 million in Series C funding led by Next World Capital with Cue Ball Capital, StarVest Partners, Constellation Growth Capital and Kodiak Venture Partner participating in the round. This bring’s Ideeli’s total funding to nearly $70 million
Flash sales have proven to be a valuable place to find a deal on almost anything; from clothing to travel to home goods to wine. But with growing number of flash sales sites out there, it can be overwhelming to track every sale each day via individual emails. Splendora’s SalesCast iPhone app aggregates over 20 sales into one free app.
MyNines, an aggregator of private sales sites, is relaunching today with a number of new features and a more streamlined user experience.
Vente-Privee, the European flash sales giant, has announced a joint venture with American Express to bring the site to the U.S.