ILM East: Gilt City’s Richardson on Curating ‘Lifestyle’ Deals

Gilt City CEO Nate Richardson, speaking at ILM East, said the site has married good deals with highly curated lifestyle items and services. As such, it has strongly differentiated itself from other deals providers. Indeed Gilt City’s ability to leverage Gilt Group’s five million member list, and a flash sales approach, provides higher average dollar values and better open rates. Richardson reports that the site has seen open rates and conversion rate “well into the double digits.”

The site launched last year in New York. Since September, the site has been operating in six U.S. cities, including New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In December, it added Tokyo as its first international market.

The sites have their own feet on the street sales force, or “curators,” as Richardson calls them. Every curator is equipped with an iPad to illustrate the site’s high quality graphics, as well as case studies that provide as much information on every category as possible.

Other markets will be added during 2011, but the site is not for every market, cautioned Richardson. “We’ll be in all the right cities where we can match the lifestyles of our customers,” he says.