Loehmann’s hires SmartBargains.com to do its online selling
Loehmann’s Holdings Inc., a retailer of fashion apparel sold at discount prices, this week launched online sales through an agreement with SmartBargains.com Inc., whose excess merchandise site SmartBargains.com will serve as the apparel merchant’s exclusive e-commerce site.
Although SmartBargains also features online stores for home furnishings retailer The Bombay Co. and for Sure Fit, a retailer of furniture slipcovers, Loehmann’s is the first retailer to use SmartBargains as its only e-commerce presence, a SmartBargains spokesman says. “For the Loehmann’s arrangement, this represents a new strategy,” the spokesman says.
In addition to using SmartBargains.com, No. 190 in Internet Retailer’s Top 300 Guide to retailing web sites, as its e-commerce platform, New York-based Loehmann’s will also rely on SmartBargains for fulfillment and shipping, which will be handled out of SmartBargains’ distribution center in Hebron, KY, the spokesman says. He adds that Loehmann’s decided to use SmartBargains instead of developing its own e-commerce site to leverage the Boston-based company’s technology expertise and to generate new shoppers among SmartBargains.com’s existing traffic. “Merchandise from Loehmann`s will be offered to many new consumers who share a keen interest in upscale apparel at discount prices," said Loehmann’s CEO Robert N. Friedman.
The two retailers decline to provide further details on how they will handle ownership of Loehmann’s inventory. But Bombay is considering different options, including selling its inventory to SmartBargains or retaining ownership until purchased by customers, says Matt Corey, Bombay’s vice president of marketing and e-commerce.
Loehmann’s operates its own informational web site at Loehmanns.com, which offers a link to SmartBargains.com. The Bombay Co., No. 233 in Internet Retailer’s Top 300 Guide, and Sure Fit, No. 204 in Internet Retailer’s Top 300 Guide, each operates its own e-commerce site but uses SmartBargains.com as an additional outlet for excess merchandise.
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