The main page is just as clear to me. I clicked on About to confirm I didn't have an incorrect impression.

"Fab.com features daily design inspirations and sales at up to 70% off retail."

That pretty much sums it up. It also got me to give them my email address.

It didn't sum anything up to me. Actually, I didn't have any idea what "daily design inspirations" might be. I still wasn't quite clear about it after reading the first paragraphs of the about page (after which I concluded it can't be anything I'm interested in). Perhaps the problem is just me being a foreigner, but I hope people would start adding a "About in plain english" page on their sites ;)

I understood immediately. I am well connected to their target audience.

For those not in their target audience, I could see how it could be confusing.

"Fab.com features daily design inspirations and sales at up to 70% off retail."

We've A/B tested many other variants and this far out performs all else.

That's my point. They are not selling "design inspirations". They are selling designer products, and it would be nice if they specified the types of products they are selling.

"Design" is so generic, it can mean many things - a desktop wallpaper, a skin for Firefox, a knitting pattern.

just curious, knowing that it's designer objects, would you actually be interested? I tend to know a great deal of people who completely fetishize the idea of consuming "good design" from end-to-end. So this type of customer would be delighted to find an awesome knitting pattern or candlestick or cheese board. They'd probably be into a great desktop wallpaper too, if there were a truly original / useful concept for that.

We've tested numerous variants on language/messaging and this converts best to subscribers + purchasers so far. Always testing though...

I guess it has different appeal for different people. I immediately understood it and signed up. Sort of a Cool Hunting with a purchase button. Right up my alley.

So it appears that I(and many others on HN) are just not aware of this type of design culture as evidenced by my not understanding what "Cool Hunting" meant. I had to google that too!

Ah, that makes sense. I get too many emails from architect and designer friends about these sort of products that it's easy to assume everyone does. Some other sites in a similar vein:

http://www.betterlivingthroughdesign.com/ http://uncrate.com/ http://svpply.com/ http://breathemodern.com/