Attack Of The Clones

One of the hottest trends this year has been the rise of the flash sale.While Gilt gets a lot of the credit for mainstreaming the concept, the truth is that Fab.com really took it to the next level, spawning the "curation" craze. The value proposition remains high, and continues to see stratospheric growth.

Just one thing...I know success begets imitation, but it's time for a look at the e-mail templates. The truth is that most of these sites rely on e-mail as their primary traffic driver. And yet, all seem to be stuck in a bit of a creative rut. The formula seems to be "four squares:"

Gilt City's version. Stark, straightforward.

PopSugar gets in the mix; kudos to them for adding content to the squares., as well as good headlines.

ScoutMob jumped in this last week, and they appear to be taking no chances. Odd, when you consider their brand is so hip and a bit edgy, but their Shoppe (complete with retro naming) emails sure aren't.

The original. Yes, this works well for the Fab brand, but emulating the form in hopes of replicating the success seems a bit foolhardy.

Of course, all of these folks are chasing successful e-commerce brands like Amazon, eBay and more. Yet each of those brands have e-mails that reflect their brands, not the above. Now, the common aspect of all of the above is that most of the brands are new to the e-commerce game; many have yet to find their e-commerce "voice." But given how many optimize around delivery time, it's jarring to see a slew of the above all delivered within an hour of each other, and struggle to distinguish one from another.

I could be very wrong. They could have A/B tested forty different formats, found that consumers responded far better to this, and that perhaps the consumers are dictating the response rate-generated format. Seems odd to me, however, given that more vertical flash sale sites (i.e. The Clymb) have not veered that direction. For now, the savvy shopper will endure the march of the clones.

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