Holiday Shopping Notebook: Private Sales Sites

The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Just in time for the holidays, Totsy.com has joined an increasingly crowded field of online sites that offer invitation-only limited sales.

But Totsy aims to set itself apart from its rivals like gilt.com, hautelook.com and ruelala.com because it specifically targets expecting moms and families with young children with items like diaper bags, maternity clothes and strollers.

The site, which already had 15 sales events for different labels since it launched in mid-October, is expected to have more than 200 brands within the next six months. The labels are mostly European with limited distribution.

Among some of its recent hot-selling items were Zigo strollers and My Vintage Baby diaper bags.

Members are alerted to these flash sale events of individual designers 48 hours in advance. Each brand's exclusive sale lasts for a total of 72 hours. Discounts range anywhere from 40 percent to 70 percent.

Guillaume Gauthereau, CEO of Totsy, which also launched in Canada, projects that sales in its second year will reach $100 million. He noted that the private sales model started in Europe about six years ago, but he believes that the opportunities in the U.S. are "even greater" and finds the demographic of families with young children to be "an ideal audience."