In some cases, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That is unless your extremely popular site has been completely cloned.
Fab founder and CEO Jason Goldberg tweeted about a new-found UK based clone of his money making machine, and wasn’t flattered at all.
This looks somewhat familiar. Imitation in this case is not all that flattering.bit.ly/w8hFX7 Complete rip-off.
— Jason Goldberg (@betashop) January 25, 2012
The site is called Bamarang, and not only does it appear to be a rip-off of Fab’s simplistic design (complete with rotating images upon refresh), it looks that the site is lifting its successful business model as well, touting deals of up to 70% off:
In case you’re not sure of what Fab, a site that offers exclusive deals from designers, looks like, here’s a look:
Fab made its way to one million users in just five months, could hit two million users by next week, and recently received a valuation of $200M after a round of funding.
This is extremely reminiscent of what happened when Groupon took off, as many knockoffs spawned themselves all over the globe. When people see success like Fab has, unfortunately their first move is to clone it. In some cases, these companies get purchased by the ones they clone, since they focus on a specific part of the world that the original hasn’t.
Goldberg’s tweet didn’t sound like he was in a buying mode, though.




















the samwers, who else... http://gigaom.com/2012/01/25/now-samwer-bros-clone-fab-and-target-european-rollout/
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LikeManuel Koelman Avast! The Samwers cloning successful e-commerce businesses? Never! ;)
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LikeMaybe if fab.com allowed UK customers to purchase from their website - a clone would never have been started / needed.
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LikeThe simplistic design and rotating images isn't something that was invented by Fab.com - it's been a common style for landing pages for a while. LaunchRock even offer that kind of page in a SaaS model.
It seems ironic that Fab.com which itself is a clone of Groupon focusing on fashion is criticizing someone for cloning their concept.
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LikeI'm all for it normally. Ideas are, ultimately, worthless, and if someone can bring a popular concept to a place the "original" currently has no intention to spread to - all the better. But there's no reason to copy the f**king site design, it just drags down the quite legitimate industry of launching similar products in new territories...
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LikeWho's the cloner - the Samwer borthers?
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