Social Commerce and Fab

I have become increasingly bullish on the future of e-commerce, particularly because I think we’re about to enter a period where social shakes up the industry. There are a couple of emerging trends we’ve seen over the past year: content & curation first, commerce second (Fab); celebrity endorsements (Beachmint & Shoedazzle); subscription models (Birchbox); flash sales (Gilt Groupe); and innovation in the peer-to-peer marketplace (SideTour/Vayable/Gidsy). As we see innovative companies emerge across these different models and create new ones, we are just beginning to see them utilize the power of social.

Social has disrupted many industries from publishing and gaming to advertising and the news, but we’re only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the impact of social on e-commerce. Pinterest is a massive step in that direction, providing an incredibly powerful curation network and social layer across the “things” on the internet.

Another company that’s pushing the boundaries is Fab. They have been crushing it, literally launching a new product almost every other week for the past two months. Their pace of innovation is astounding. Just look at this timeline:

December 16 Fab launches their Live Feed
January 19 they launch a social shopping app for Facebook
January 25 Fab Shops go live
Feb 9 2.0 goes live on mobile and iPad
Feb 14 Specialty Shops go live

For a site and business that’s still so young they’re shipping product and growing remarkably fast. One thing I love is CEO Jason Goldberg’s insistence that “Social is a fact, not a feature.” We’re beginning to see that belief spread across all of Fab’s products, especially the Live Feed. I’ve never seen a commerce site incorporate so many sharing and communication elements. It’s beginning to look less like a storefront and more like a network of design lovers. What began as a flash sales site driven by daily emails has gradually morphed into a social commerce site where direct traffic from Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook has outpaced email referrals. That’s not a feature, that’s a fact, and that’s just the beginning.

Kudos to Fab for being bold, experimenting, innovating, and pushing the envelope on social commerce. What’s inspiring is that this is only just one example of one company bringing social elements to, and building a network on top of, their commerce business. Many others are in the same boat. It’s going to be a wild ride watching this space grow over the course of the next several years.