1. On good Days they make 500k USD per Day in Revenue. Quite a lot for a Business thats just over two years.
2. Fab works with 8.000 Designers world Wide. The Network is their Success. They buy directly most of their goods.
3. When Copycats appeared on the market, they briefed their Designers immediatly that they should be aware
4. Since their Network, specifically their suppliers good, they responded to that call
5. Design is King. Especially if you are in Design-Space. Designing great experience is a necessity for a startup
6. Users got only 6-7 Apps they use daily. You got to be awsome to be one of them. Fab managed to have about 10 Mio. of these Users.
7. Good Examples for a good Product is Kayak – http://www.kayak.com/ and also best rated at Behance – http://www.behance.net/
8. Mobile requires better Design. Focus on the experience.
9. A success Factor of Fab.com is how they source: Personal Relationships with their Suppliers and Designers.
10. Bringing rare Designs to a big audience is the winning combination: 80 Scouts search 10 Deals each, every day
11. Mixture is key: 5 USD Entree Level Product mixed with 4k Premium Furniture
12. Be nice: Don’t wholesale, Be Premium, Be Pickey. so that top Brands Like Vitra and Kartell work with you
13. Fab.com is in US, CA, EU. The European Business is doing 30%
14. Users are dayparting: Starting Usage with the iPhone, Using Webbrowser during the day, finishing with the Tablet.
15. The shop got a 6-8% Conversion on an average visit
16. E-Mail was the initial Force. Now at 20-30%. Hot Leads are from Social Sharing. Up to 50% of Sales are sparked from Social.
17. Motivating Designers by buying Inventory. 70% of Fab.com Goods are from their Warehouse
18. Fab Business is first Emotions and then Data
19. Fab Buyers are 2 out of 3 repeat Buyers
20. Get Design out of the Way of the user. Explain what to do. Get away with icons.
21. Work only gets released if carefully tested.

 

something intersting I found on Fab.com Blog, and pasted here:

Fab’s first pivot happened fast. And 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.

 

Some Facts about Fabs 2nd pivot:

• 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.

 

http://www.kayak.com/