Gilt Groupe Spin Off Appeals to Manly Pride
An innovative e-commerce company offering highly coveted products and experiences at insider prices, Gilt Groupe is straying from the exclusivity of flash sales with a stand alone, full-priced men’s website. It will be launched the summer of 2011, concurring to the event of Pre-Fall 2011 collections. The men’s site will offer a selection of men’s apparel, accessories, athletic gear, gadgets and more.
“With a strong understanding of the way men shop and the rapid growth we’ve seen on Gilt MAN in the past year, we feel the time is right time to enter the full-price e-commerce space,” said John Auerbach, who, having served as General Manager of Gilt MAN, will be President of this new men’s business under the Gilt Groupe umbrella.
“This new site will be unlike anything else out there, built from the ground up with men’s very specific shopping habits and needs in mind.”
The new website will have similar curated brands as other full price sites. Items will stay on sale based on the season and the company’s flash-sales model.
“Our goal is to offer the best men’s product across multiple categories in a well curated and user friendly shopping environment. In short, we aim to be the ‘go-to’ online destination for the modern man,” says Auerbach.
Gilt has been heavily focused on women’s retail, though it added a channel for men relatively early on. It has been a leader in fashion online retail, so the men’s spin off, particularly without certain flash sale aspects, demonstrates how fashion retail trends are spreading to other demographics. Also, the company made a strategic acquisition last month. Men’s retail is making strides in the online sector, following many of the patterns set forth by women’s online retail. Etsy, too, has recently expanded its niche marketing efforts to be more tailored to men.
Gilt’s gearing up an all-star team for its expansion efforts, bringing in veterans from other digital and offline industry companies. The Former Director of Men’s Brand management at Rue La La and Associate Divisional Merchandise Manager of Saks Fifth Avenue, Brooke Cundiff, will take over as Divisional Merchandising Manager of the new full-price men’s business. Tyler Thoreson, Gilt MAN Editorial Director and former Executive Editor of Men.Style.com, will be in charge of creative and editorial. Andy Comer, former GQ multimedia editor will be the Executive Editor of the new website. Brian Kalma will be in take charge of user experience.
Luxury brands are seeing a wide array of options for e-commerce, and are even finding ways to take advantage of the holiday shopping season for online purchases. Google wants in on luxury fashion retail as well.
[images courtesy Gilt Groupe]
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