ShopRunner Buys Fashion Marketplace

M&A

Two-day shipping platform ShopRunner is reportedly planning to acquire Spring, an eCommerce startup that runs an online department store. Terms of such a deal are not yet clear, and both companies declined to comment on the news, Recode reported.

Spring’s online store carries fashion items as well as accessories from brands like Gucci and Levi’s. The company’s sales are split about 50-50 between its mobile app and website. As of now, the company has notched $100 million in funding from investors such as Box Group and Fidelity. Many of Shop Runner’s customers receive complimentary access to the service through ShopRunner’s partnerships.

And ShopRunner, which was started by Michael Rubin, provides two-day shipping for free to its members from eCommerce retailers such as Bloomingdale’s and Cole Haan. Shop Runner customers reportedly spend over $2 billion each year on the sites of the company’s partner retailers, and the company, in turn, gets a portion of those sales.

The news comes as flash sale relative newcomer Rue La La snapped up Gilt Groupe, an eCommerce site that specializes in designer goods at a deep discount. Hudson Bay is Gilt’s parent company, and the sale is now the second time in 11 years the site has been sold to new ownership.

The hope, when HBC first bought Gilt, was that it could be useful in boosting online sales. The reality, however, was that flash sites as a segment have cooled quite a bit since the acquisition, and HBC has, in the meantime, decided to focus more closely on the retail locations it controls — notably Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Rue La La is owned by Philadelphia eCommerce tech company Kynetic, which also owns sports licensing firm Fanatics. The site is unique in its segment in that it has profitably been selling designer clothes, beauty products and home decorations for four years and has seen high single-digit growth in that time. At one point during the heyday days of flash sale sites, Gilt was valued at more than $1 billion.