California Apparel News

In April, Irvine, Calif.–headquartered men’s shopping site FlyPeeps (www.flypeeps.com) will open for business in the crowded market for e-commerce.

But the site, currently in beta testing, will offer two things other shopping sites don’t offer, said Mohammad Harake, vice president of marketing and business development.

The first is the “peep” button. It works similar to a “like” button on Facebook. However, the peep button can start a conversation between a consumer and a brand, Harake said. The talk will typically be about discounts.

Consumers are encouraged to pay full price, but if they press the peep button, they will notify a brand that they are interested in a discount. If the brand chooses to answer the peep request—typically in a day—the brand can offer any discount it wants. The consumer cannot haggle. “It’s a chance for higher-end brands to privatize their discounts,” Harake said. “It’s a chance to offer the discount exclusively to consumers who are really interested in the brand and the specific product. We don’t publicize the discounts. It’s a much more private experience.”

FlyPeeps also will feature an algorithm that measures its consumers’ tastes. The site does try to gauge its consumers’ tastes with questionnaires. However, the more active shoppers are on the site, the better the algorithm will be able to recommend fashions to the consumer.

Brands on the site currently include The West Is Dead, Life After Denim, Descendant of Thieves, Diesel, Scotch & Soda and Parke & Ronen. The 17-year-old brand Parke & Ronen is currently sold online at Amazon.com, as well as at e-commerce sites for retailers Barneys New York, Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom and the brand’s e-commerce site (www.parkeandronen.com). The brand’s co-founder Ronen Jehezkel said that his company gets regularly hit up to participate in e-commerce ventures.

“The first question I ask when I get approached by online vendors is who else do they carry?” Jehezkel said, adding he liked the brands on the site. “They carry labels that I feel comfortable being next to. It’s not a mishmash of things. It’s for the trendy, fashionable guy. It’s not a high price, but it’s on the upper scale,” he said.

“It looks pretty promising,” Jehezkel said of the site.