I guess it’s a little awkward when you find a company that immediately makes you think of a very similar, more successful company. In this case, when I came across ideeli, I immediately thought of Gilt Groupe (which we covered a while back). Both are New York City based startups that offer online sample sales that give shoppers the opportunity to buy luxury goods—mostly clothing and accessories—at serious discounts. According to Wikipedia a sample sale is “used by retail businesses in order to discard excess merchandise.” That’s exactly what these companies do, but they’ve moved the entire process online (which is way more efficient). Both sites require invites to get in on the deals, so if you want to try ideeli click here and if you want to try Gilt Groupe click here. Although I haven’t made any purchases on either of these sites, my girlfriend Amy loves this way of shopping. There’s the element of surprise, because you never know what you’re going to find, yet you still get to enjoy the ease of shopping online.
Although Gilt Groupe really has staked a claim to this market, it’s big enough and growing fast enough that there’s room for a lot of competition. You wouldn’t think that selling luxury goods during a recession—even at heavy discounts—would be good business, but it is. One way that ideeli has tweaked their business model to stand out is that they offer a subscription service that gives shoppers first dibs on all sales. It’s a pretty creative idea, and it gives them a steady revenue stream (with almost no additional cost) that can balance out the ebbs and flows of e-commerce. ideeli received $3.8 million in investment back in December of ’07 and they seem to be doing pretty well. They have quite a few unpaid internship openings posted right now including Marketing/Database Analytics Intern, Social Media Marketing Intern, and Marketing Intern. You can apply online from their Internships page, so check out the full descriptions and see if you’re interested.
Links to Help You Begin Your Research
If you want an ideeli invite, click here.
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Tags: analyst, analytics, apparel, data, e-commerce, fashion, Internships, marketing, New York, retail, social media, social networking, unpaid
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