Fab.com gears up for huge expansions: open doors, new shops, international ops

Fab.com, the design-focused flash sale site, has been going gangbusters lately. Today, the company announced a slew of changes aimed at a global takeover.

The company’s news is fourfold:

[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":382285,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,","session":"C"}']

First, the site is nearing the 2 million member mark and should hit that target “any day now,” according to the company blog.

For an invite-only retail site, that’s huge. It’s also huge when you consider the site’s growth trajectory over the past few months; they’re totally hockeystickin’.

Observe:

Second, the team has rolled out Shops, a beautiful and handy new way to browse the site’s ever-changing roster of products.

Fab Shops will help to organize Fab’s flash sales by category rather than just by designer, so you can see all the home decor items at once, all the apparel items, etc. Moreover, you can sort those shops by price and popularity.

Observe:

[aditude-amp id="medium1" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":382285,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,","session":"C"}']

---

Third, Fab is now no longer an invite-only site; anyone can trot on over and sign up to shop to their anatomically correct heart’s content.

And finally, Fab.com is taking its business into international waters. The service will go live for Canadians within a few days, and the team is making similar arrangements in Europe “very soon.”

All things considered, it looks like CEO Jason Goldberg & Co. are getting ready to take over the world.

[aditude-amp id="medium2" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":382285,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"business,","session":"C"}']

“We’re planning to grow from 2 million members to 5 million this year worldwide,” Goldberg said in an email to VentureBeat. “We’re prepared to handle it.”

The company used some strategic funding to accomplish this growth; it took an $8 million round in late July 2011 and a relatively huge, relatively quick $40 million just a few months later in December.