What's a Dress Worth? A $400M Fashion Startup founded by former Doubleclick CEO

Interesting point that a post earlier today discussed - timing and first movers http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1127500:

The problem: One morning, the site was mentioned briefly on The View, and Gilt was deluged with 60,000 invitation requests. It soon became clear that the company’s greatest challenge was going to be expanding its supply to keep up with demand.

How timing is essential: The world economy blew up. With shocking suddenness, $11 trillion of American wealth dematerialized, leaving the country awash in unwanted extravagances. Between the autumns of 2008 and 2009, according to Bain Capital, as little as 25 percent of all luxury goods moved at full price, and nearly half of all items didn’t sell all season. Some department stores canceled orders from designers, or refused to pay for shipped merchandise. Quite a few smaller retailers went out of business entirely. That was when Gilt stepped forward with its checkbook, and said good-bye to its supply problem.

The fifth 'page' of the article is where you'll find some interesting answers as to how to sustain this as the economy recovers.

Gilt is fantastic and it is also gaining a popular following here in Tokyo.

As a female consumer who loves fashion, I have been disappointed with the lag in fashion companies to adopt new technology and ideas online, I love this idea and would like to see a service like this devoted solely to shoes.

I hope to see even more services focusing on the massive group of women consumers online.

Gilt is brilliant. So are things like groupon/scoopst. Throw in woot as well. What other areas can this be applied to? The usual factors can include:

a) Email newsletter delivery

b) Scarcity of time

c) Discounted price

d) Possible exclusivity

e) Very very many : 1 (or a few)

f) Possible locational constraints involved

g) An incentive to invite others.