While some of you don’t need an introduction to flash shopping sites, I think it’s required here. Over the past few years flash shopping sites have emerged to bring the “sample sale” experience to online shoppers. They generally focus on an area of luxury goods such as fashion, home goods and home décor. Shoppers generally have to subscribe to be granted entry to the site, and get email notifications listing the sales each day. These sales, like sample sales, are for a limited time of about two or three days, and the site might host three or 12 sales from different designers or manufacturers on any given day.
These sites include the fashion site Gilt.com (which expanded to home goods, travel and more); OneKingsLane.com for home goods and décor; and pop culture and décor flash sale site Fab.com. When you visit the site and click on a sale you see the timer counting down to the sale’s close. One site I wasn’t aware of until recently is adventure and gear site The Clymb (theclymb.com). The site focuses on sales of outdoor clothing, footwear and gear. On any given day you might see sales for outdoor apparel, running or hiking shoes, stainless steel of BPA-free water bottles, surfboards or fly fishing gear. Since checking out the site, I’ve seen brands such as Keen footwear, Patagonia, SPY Optic, Stanley water bottles, Pearl Izumi apparel. And that’s just a sampling of the sales, with anywhere from three to 12 going on in a given day.
Full disclosure, I was given a $50 credit to conduct this review. I was hard-pressed to decide on an item. I waited a few days to figure out what I wanted. In that time I missed out on a great pair of winter boots, the sale ended; some luggage I could really use, the item sold out quickly; and a baselayer top, I decided to see what else was coming on The Clymb.
I finally decided on a pair of Spy Optic sunglasses. I wear a pair of interchangeable lens sunglasses for regular wear. Though I decided it was time for a respectable pair of sunglasses. Of course I still wanted a pair that was sporty, and had the sun-protecting standards of a sport pair of sunglasses. So I placed the order.
Let me revisit the whole flash sale concept again for a moment. These sites hawk luxury items, high-end lines of goods. The product assortments are typically closeouts, and might contain 10 or 20 items from the manufacturer. I’ve found a few common actions in my experience. The sale lists the manufacturer’s suggested retail price and the sale price, which is often at 50 percent or so. When considering a purchase I always do a search on Amazon.com or Google. The prices on flash sale sites is generally a great deal, however I have found matching (or better) prices on Amazon.com for enough items to be prudent. The next thing to consider is that these sites charge roughly $8 on shipping. My purchase of a pair of sunglasses for $59.98 (including my $50 credit), added a shipping and handling fee of $7.98. This should factor into your cursory price comparison. The next element is that shipping can take a while. I placed my order on September 8; it shipped on September 23, and showed up at my door on September 30. For many of these purchases time is not an issue. But if you’re buying luggage or clothing for a trip, or an item for a gift, give yourself a month to get it. This is not unique to The Clymb, I’ve experienced this on the other sites I mentioned above.
In the case of The Clymb, I am happy with my purchase. The glasses came in their box, which the shipper surrounded in bubble wrap and placed in a mailer bag. While I was expecting a box, the soft envelope and padding were sufficient. I’d say the experience exceeded my expectations. And I do check the site every day for new sales. Today I logged in a little too late to by a pair of Salomon boots I’m coveting. They sold out of my size within a few hours of the sale going live. I still did a quick Google search and found the boots for twice the cost listed on Zappos.com. I really wish I could rewind a few hours and buy those boots before they went!
Oh and one more thing about flash sale sites, they reward referrals. You can only access the sales if you sign up, so they need to spread their word virally. If you refer a friend, you get $10 when that friend makes a purchase.
Update: The Clymb extended its $10 bounty to KineticShift readers. Follow this link to get $10 off your first order at The Clymb.