Flash sale fashion sites were a hot retail category during the recession, when high-end retailers had lots of inventory to get rid of. They proliferated, the bubble burst, with big players like Fab, Gilt, and Zulily all acquired by larger companies. Amazon started its own flash-sale site for fashion, MyHabit.com, in 2011 when the category was still growing, but announced that the site will close in May, just as Amazon is working to sell more of its own private-label and other brands’ clothing.

Amazon is the biggest online retailer, and fashion is now the biggest category in e-commerce by sales, so it’s easy to understand Amazon’s interest. At the same time, killing off MyHabit as the company makes more of a serious push to sell clothing makes sense. They can move fashion-savvy employees elsewhere in the growing Amazon Fashion business.

A company representative told WWD that the reason for the closing is to “simplify” the company’s fashion offerings.

“As we continue to increase our breadth of selection and improve the customer experience on Amazon.com,” the spokesperson wrote, “we have decided to simplify our offering and will be closing MyHabit at the end of May.”

Amazon Shuttering Myhabit.com [WWD]

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