Fab Quietly Murdered Flash Sales This Morning

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Design-focused e-tailer Fab has proved itself to be impressively innovative in the two short years it's been around, and today they introduce another e-commerce game-changer.

The brand has announced via founder Jason Goldberg's blog that they will no longer be hosting timed flash sales, instead adopting a new "following" function that allows shoppers to track the categories they're interested in. "We'll start today by enabling Fab's customers to follow departments (like Furniture)," he writes. "Shortly thereafter Fab customers will be able to follow designers and specific topics (like photography). Users will have full control over how they hear from Fab about the stuff they follow: Via emails and mobile push notifications."

Fab has emerged as a e-commerce trend-setter, and this move does not bode well for flash-sale sites like Gilt.

Not that Gilt hasn't seen the writing on the wall. For their part, they've been looking at ways to keep customers interested as flash-sale fatigue sets in with customers and the market has flooded with copycat sites. That's what those week-long themed shops and full-price luxury goods are all about. As flash sales continue to lose their power over customers, we expect to see more changes like those from Gilt and its competitors.
· Bye. Bye. Daily Flash Sales. @Fab Introduces Following [Betahop]
· How Gilt's New Dress Shop Is Fighting Flash-Sale Fatigue [Racked]
· Welcome to the New Era of 'Emotional Commerce' [Racked]