What your Open Sky daily email will look like.
Looks like we really like being told by experts what to buy.
OpenSky is the latest celebrity-curated site to launch, (and there have been plenty of others). Curators range from food personalities (Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio) to fashion designers (Cynthia Rowley, Liz Lange) and sometime A-listers (Alicia Silverstone, Molly Sims) to reality stars (Kelly Bensimon, Lisa Rinna). You pick up to 10 curators to follow, and then you can get deals of up to 60% off their favorite products. For easy picking, sales are divided into food, style, health, and design categories.
What your OpenSky daily email will look like.
While we highly doubt that Alicia wrote the two-paragraph blurb for Magic Bars, it’s refreshing to hear all the details and background of what she personally loves about it (as opposed to just a link). The appeal of OpenSky is Just Like Us! celebrity gossip mixed in with that nonstop allure of the daily deal. And the 90-day hassle-free, no-questions-asked return policy isn’t bad either.
The staff is also impressive: they have e-commerce and celebrity cred thanks to former employees of Gilt Groupe, About.com, Shopping.com, Target.com and Ford Models. We also approve of their blog that offers Q&A’s with their curators, lending credibility to their expertise. And the deals are wide-ranging: today, we were intrigued by natural agate bookends and Amrita Singh earrings.
That said, it’s not clear whether certain products get better placement or endorsement based on stealthily concealed ad placements – or unknown celebrity endorsement deals. (Unlike Daily Candy, there’s no such disclaimer saying otherwise). The other issue we had was one of navigation: there’s no way to search for just food sales or jewelry products. Clicking on their Food tab takes you to the curators in that category (and sometimes you can see a deal under their names), but we’d prefer a product-based search too.
What do you think of the new site? Will you start subscribing? Or are you approaching daily deal overload?
