13
Dec

Fab’s 2nd Pivot

Fab’s first pivot happened fast. And quite publicly.

  • On February 24, 2011 Bradford and I decided to shutter our fledging gay social networking website, fabulis, and relaunch it as a Fab, the place for everyday design.
  • 7 days later, on March 1, 2011 we got approval from our board of directors. 
  • 8 days later, on March 9, 2011 we shut down the old business and got to work building the new technology, designer relationships, and membership base needed to re-launch. 
  • 3 months to-the-day, on June 9, 2011, we re-launched as Fab. We sold $65,000 on our first day. 
  • We had successfully pivoted from gay social network to online design flash sales phenom in just 90 days. 
  • We hit 1 million members 4 months later. 
  • We sold $10M in November and December 2011. 
  • We had started to build a brand.
  • We were off to a good start.

So, we did next what came naturally to us.

We pivoted again.

Only, this time we did it slower and less publicly.

We’re now ready to pull to covers off of the massive pivot Fab has successfully undergone in 2012, from design flash sales to the world’s leading everyday design retailer. 

  • In December 2011 we had 1.5 million members. 
  • Today we have 10 million members.
     
  • In December 2011 we had <2,000 products on Fab at any one time. 
  • Today, we have more than 15,000 products on Fab.

  • In 2011 we had <5% of our products in inventory. 
  • Today, more than 75% of the products we sell are in inventory.

  • In 2011 we relied entirely on 3rd party fulfillment services.  
  • Today, we manage our own warehouse and supply chain, built entirely on our own technology.

  • In 2011 we averaged more than 16 days from time of order to shipment. It was painful. 
  • Today items ship from our warehouse the same day they are ordered. Our average time to ship is just a couple of days across all types of orders.
     
  • On December 13, 2011 about 100 products on Fab were eligible for expedited overnight shipping.
  • On December 13, 2012 more than 8,000 products on Fab are now eligible for expedited overnight shipping.

  • In 2011 our highest sales day was around $300k. 
  • In 2012 we’ve had several million dollar sales days.

  • In 2011 we sold 3 products per minute on average. 
  • Yesterday we sold 23 products per minute. 

  • In 2011 we ended the year with 85 fulltime employees. 
  • Today we have 600 fulltime Fab team members across 3 major cities: New York, Berlin, and Pune. 

  • In 2011 100% of our sales were from customers in the U.S. 
  • Today 30% of our sales come from Europe.

  • In December 2011 15% of our sales were via our mobile apps.
  • Today, 1/3rd of our sales are via mobile and during some day-parts more than 50%.

  • In December 2011 5% of logins to Fab resulted in a purchase.
  • In December 2012 13% of logins to Fab result in a purchase.

  • Today, our average order size is 10% higher than it was last year.

  • Today our gross margins are 25% higher than they were last year.

And, we’re still just getting started.

We believe that the best companies are never complacent.

It takes a ton of re-imagining and reinventing to stay ahead.

Even while we’ve been massively pivoting our business this year while growing it many times over, we’ve also been hard at work planning for what comes next.

So, in 2013 we’ll be pivoting even further. We’ll be pivoting towards a new model that we are not yet ready to reveal publicly. That pivot will be gradual. I can promise you one thing: It will be 100% towards delivering the best customer experience in the world for discovering everyday design. We’ll offer even more unique products supported by an even better experience.  

Smile, you’re designed to.

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About

Betashop is the website of Jason Goldberg,
Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Fab.

Jason founded Fab in 2011 with Bradford Shellhammer (Chief Design Officer) and Nishith Shah (Chief Technology Officer).

Fab is everyday design.

Fab’s mission is to help people better their lives with design. Millions of people around the world use Fab to discover everyday design products at great prices, to connect with the world’s most exciting designers, and to share their favorite design inspirations. Smile, you're designed to.

Some have called Fab "the fastest growing E-commerce company on the planet." We like to say we're just doing our best to serve up great design that makes people smile.

Fab now serves more than 11 million members across 26 countries. Fab grew sales by more than 500% in 2012, one-third of which comes from users of the Fab mobile apps for iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. In February 2013 Fab was named the #5 most innovative company in the World by Fast Company. Fab won the award for Best E-Commerce Company of The Year at The Crunchies in both 2012 and 2011. It's all very humbling and inspiring. The truth is we celebrate our challenges more than our successes at Fab and we're really still just getting started.

Fab is the fourth company Jason founded. Jason previously founded fabulis, socialmedian, and Jobster. In 2009, following the sale of socialmedian to XING AG, Jason was Chief Product Officer at XING, based in Hamburg, Germany. Before starting Jobster in 2004, Jason led product and business initiatives at both T-Mobile USA and AOL Time Warner. In a prior life, Jason spent 6 years working 100 hours a week for Bill Clinton in the White House.

Jason is also an investor in and Board Member at RJ Metrics. He is also an investor in BlackJet and Twitter. Notable prior investments: TweetDeck.

Jason is a product guy. He loves to blog, loves transparency, and loves trying to make people smile. Jason shares everything about Fab on his blog, betashop, at http://betashop.com.

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