Fab Layers on New Verticals

This necklace by Necklush is one of the pieces that will be featured when Fab.com launches its fashion vertical on Feburary 21. It is launching a total of five new verticals.

Image: Fab.com

Now that Fab.com has built up its audience, gaining 2 million members in eight months, its founders are finding new ways to make them stick around and buy. In the world of online retail, that means fresh verticals.

Fab's chief executive officer Jason Goldberg and chief operating officer Bradford Shellhammer are announcing today the launch of five different vertical shops on Fab.com. Rather than keeping the items available for the three-day deals that are typical at Fab, items will have a shelf life of one week.

The additions lead off with a section for kids, which goes live tomorrow, and will feature clothes, baby accessories, toys, furniture, and books, among other items for children right up through their teens.

Next up will be the pets vertical, launching on Thursday, with items such as pet toys, treats, and artwork. That will be followed by food, including artisanal cheese, candies, spreads, and beer on Friday, followed by vintage furniture, clothes, and accessories on Monday, February 20, and, finally, fashion on February 21.

The latter, which ties in to the company’s recent acquisition of FashionStake, will include men’s and women’s apparel, including contemporary and ready-to-wear, accessories, jewelry, bags, and fashion-related items such as magazine subscriptions.

The move will bring fresh competition to a host of other startups from companies like Totsy, which offers children's goods in a flash-sales model, to Lot 18, which added gourmet food to its wine offerings.

Perhaps the biggest catfight, though, might be reserved for the fashion category. Fab's new offerings will put the company into competition with others that have already been milling around the flash fashion space for some time, including Gilt—which just redesigned its site—Ideeli, Hautelook, and RueLaLa. But if Fashion Week isn’t a good time for a battle of the brands, we don’t know what is.