[A few weeks ago I contributed a few fashion PR/marketing type questions for an interview Heather Petrey of LA Fashion Snob had set up with Hautelook CEO Adam Bernhard.  Hautelook features 48-hour sale events with the  top fashion, accessories, beauty, kids and home brands. Below is the result of that exchange - followed by the additional questions posited to Adam. Thanks Heather for allowing the repost! ]

LAFS (on behalf of Crosby Noricks-PR Couture): Given the proliferation of similar sites, how do you continue to differentiate Hautelook and retain/extend your community?

AB: As a first-mover we have an advantage that our site is recognized as one of the leaders in the space. We are able to leverage that because we are a west-coast based company in and of itself the culture and the brand of Hautelook is more of a casual-lifestyle brand,compared to the east-coast players in the space who are much more New York based and east-coastcentric so we have more of an inviting atmosphere of inclusiveness rather than exclusiveness and we wanna make sure that our membership continues to grow with that feeling of being a member is open as an invitation to all people no matter who they are, where they are, at what social bracket they’re in, what ethnicity they are, the gender…Now we have mens. So our focus is to differentiate by being inclusive rather than exclusive and we are letting brands know that we’re reaching a huge customer base of customers that wanna know more about what’s going on w/style as opposed to us dictating what we think style is.

LAFS (on behalf of Crosby Noricks-PR Couture): Why should a designer consider a sale through a company like Hautelook? Any success stories to share?

AB: When we first started the site, it was an exhaust vehicle for brands to be able to clear their inventory. What we quickly realized was that this was a incredible marketing vehicle for brands to be able to reach our close to three million customers on a regular basis. Seventy-five percent of our member sales , when they buy something from the sale from the brand, they go to that brand’s website . Fifty percent of the people that buy something from one of our sales they go and go buy and purchased that brand post the sale at either brick-and-mortar or online store and twenty percent said they bought an item from that brand post the sale at full price. So we’re getting brands a new member into their the brand culture and this is the real exciting part of what’s happening in the flash sales base that is not just a exhaust vehicle, but it’s a marketing vehicle.

LAFS (on behalf of Crosby Noricks-PR Couture): How does Hautelook promote itself off-domain?

AB: We have been fortunate enough to have our community of members basically build our business. The bloggersphere has really retold our story, brought sixty percent of our members into our membership base into our database and it’s been really a fantastic word of mouth growth . Plain and simple, it’s one of those phenomenons where people like to talk about it. It’s one of those things, people like to hear about it, it’s great, they like to share. Like the proliferation of the social web , people like to share what they’re doing more so then ever. So as they continue to share (girls love to share about their shopping experience) so we are continuing to escalate our ability to allow them to share information. And you’ll see something coming out in our iphone and ipad apps in the next couple months.

LAFS (on behalf of Crosby Noricks-PR Couture): What excites you about coming to work each day?

AB: I think it’s the atmosphere and the people here.We’re doing so many new things every day it’s a undiscovered territory where our business is there’s no road map in doing what we’re doing. It’s the discovery similar to every night we re-merchandise our store so every morning there’s new discovery for our members and it’s similar for me when I come to the office . There’s new challenges every day, there’s new exciting frontiers , new problems, there’s always something new for us to focus on. This is a very young atmosphere here, the employees are all very young and it’s exciting to see how everybody’s just working towards the same goal and it’s a very pleasurable place to work.

LAFS (on behalf of Crosby Noricks-PR Couture): What are three things you wish you had known before you launched Hautelook?

AB: I think not knowing sometimes allows you not to have fear. There’s a lot of things that if I knew it, I probably wouldn’t have been able to build this business as big as it is. The three things I wish I didn’t know, I still wish I didn’t know. So I know now what I knew then, I probably wouldn’t have started this business. My advice would be: don’t worry about you don’t know, learn what you don’t know and don’t be afraid. You have to just go with your intuition some of this obviously when your building a business from scratch it’s all about that feeling that you’re gonna have to make a decision and once you make a decision you’re have to stick with it. You have to be big enough to admit you’re wrong. At some point, when you know something’s not going your way you have to cut bait and move on.

Rest of the interview…

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