Shopping Site Fab.com Courts Mobile Customers

E-commerce wunderkind Fab.com has updated its mobile apps to improve the shopping experience for customers using small screens.

The company created 20 so-called shops, which organize products around specific categories, as well as the ability to browse by color, shops, and price and to further sort products within a shop by price and popularity. These changes were built into the navigation for its mobile app and website home page.

 

“This is part of our bigger plan to grow from about 3000 unique sku’s on Fab at end of 2011 to tens of thousands by end of 2012,” CEO Jason Goldberg wrote in a blog post.

Fab.com, a site that says it specializes in daily design inspirations and sales, recently reported that it hit the 2 million member mark, up from 1.5 million in early January.

Since launching its mobile apps in October, mobile accounts for 25 percent of Fab orders on a daily basis. What’s more, iPhone members purchase at twice the rate of web members and iPad members purchase at more than four times the rate of web members, Goldberg writes.

In November 2011, nearly half of Fab’s traffic came via its daily emails to members. However, in January 2012, direct visits overtook email-driven visits. Goldberg attributes the rise in direct traffic to: mobile visits; an increase in direct visits from members who don’t want to wait around for the daily Fab emails that come out each day at 11 a.m. ET; and a tipping point in general awareness after Fab reached 2 million members.

In his blog, Goldberg also notes Pinterest is gaining steam as a source of Fab traffic. While only accounting for 0.68 percent of all visits in January, Pinterest doubled as a percentage of visits that month and overtook Twitter links to claim the no. 7 spot on Fab’s list of traffic drivers, he adds.

Fab.com is also now open for anyone to join. Membership numbers were previously restricted to maintain pricing.

Fab also plans to expand in Canada and Europe and is currently looking to bring on a chief merchandising officer based in Berlin for Fab Europe.