Kaboodle's PopPicks Puts a New Spin on Flash Sales
Sunnyvale, Calif.–based social shopping website Kaboodle (www.kaboodle.com) announced the launch of its own flash-sale format showcasing select products to be handpicked by its community of 1 million-plus users.
Launched on July 26, the PopPicks (www.kaboodle.com/poppicks) sale features a partner retailer’s product selections and presents them to the Kaboodle community to vote for their favorites. The top community picks will then be offered at an exclusive, limited-time discount.
“We’ve seen the proliferation of sample-sale sites that are focused on helping a designer or retailer dispose of end-of-season inventory at a deep discount,” said Shari Gunn, Kaboodle’s chief marketing officer. “Our goal is to do something that better serves our retail partners by helping drive sales at the beginning of the products’ retail lifecycle. We’ve kind of turned the current idea of the online sample sale upside down.”
According to Gunn, PopPicks aims to forego the typical flash-sale model of assisting brands unload excess, past-market inventory and be a platform for strictly new and exclusive merchandise.
The current PopPicks sale features Palo Alto, Calif.–based e-tail site Moxsie. Upcoming sales will feature e-tailers Karmaloop, 80s Purple and Ssense.
Kaboodle editors work with retailers to curate product picks, and the selections can also be currently shopped for on the retailer’s site. Kaboodle hopes to introduce a new platform of social commerce that further engages its community.
“PopPicks is a natural extension of what Kaboodle is today,” Gunn said. “At its core, Kaboodle has always been a way for shoppers to discover, share and interact with products that have been vetted by other shoppers like them.”
For Kaboodle’s retail partners, participating in PopPicks can be a marketing opportunity that can further drive sales as well as traffic to a retailer’s site, according to Gunn.
“PopPicks is a marketing platform with sales built right in,” Gunn said. “A retailer does not have to incur any extra costs and only has to invest in as much as they make sales.”
Gunn also discussed PopPick’s potential to help retailers draw new customers and convert traffic into sales.
Users can also share their PopPicks selections via peer-to-peer messaging, e-mail, Twitter and Facebook to further drive interest to the sales.—Connie Cho
