Fortune has a story about how Thrive Market - described as the "online natural and organic retailer" - is beginning the six-month-long rollout of approximately 100 private label items that represents "the latest step for Thrive as it attempts to offer natural and organic goods at the price of the conventional non-organic equivalent."
The story notes that "Thrive, with about 150,000 members and about 20,000 new paying members a month, is approaching a $100 million run rate after launching the site at the end of 2014. Every order over $50 receives free shipping, with 90% of the company’s orders hitting that threshold."
The company offers a “hyper-curated catalogue" of SKUs, with about 4,000 items ... compared to the ten-times as many that its traditional bricks-and-mortar competition might carry. But that doesn't seem to matter; Thrive says it "is now one of the top-five sales channels for most the brands it carries."
“We can’t scale the infrastructure fast enough to service the demand,” says co-founder and co-CEO Nick Green.
The story notes that "Thrive, with about 150,000 members and about 20,000 new paying members a month, is approaching a $100 million run rate after launching the site at the end of 2014. Every order over $50 receives free shipping, with 90% of the company’s orders hitting that threshold."
The company offers a “hyper-curated catalogue" of SKUs, with about 4,000 items ... compared to the ten-times as many that its traditional bricks-and-mortar competition might carry. But that doesn't seem to matter; Thrive says it "is now one of the top-five sales channels for most the brands it carries."
“We can’t scale the infrastructure fast enough to service the demand,” says co-founder and co-CEO Nick Green.
- KC's View:
-
I wonder if the folks at Whole Foods, as they develop their "365" concept that is supposed to be smaller and less expensive than their traditional stores, are looking at Thrive as any sort of object lesson. There's a part of me that thinks that this is where the market is going, and that this is where Whole Foods ought to be placing more of its investment energy.
