Express and Emap unveil online plans with a female focus

The rush to corner the lucrative female e-commerce market continued

this week with the announcement that Express Newspapers is planning a

female lifestyle site, while Emap is planning to launch Red Direct as

fully fledged e-commerce catalogue.

Express New Media is seeking 26 staff, including online sales people, to

help create and sell space on three sites including a women’s lifestyle

site, a consumer business information site and a site which will be ’an

extension of a core Express brand value’.

The sites are still in the planning stages and will not go live until

the spring.

Emap’s Red Direct Online will launch around that time.

At present, Red magazine offers its fashion, interiors and cosmetics

home shopping spin-off, Red Direct, as a telephone-based service, but

Reddirect.co.uk will be a fully fledged e-catalogue.

Emap’s chief executive Kevin Hand last week promised other new-media

ventures in the women’s market. ’Emap’s strongest association with women

is through its special interest titles,’ he told New Media Age. ’We will

use the internet to broaden the offer of these magazines, title by

title. This strategy has more potential than a broad portal approach,’

he added.

Emap’s new-media division - currently grouped with its television

product The Box - last week posted half-year revenues of pounds 10.6

million and an operating loss of pounds 1.1 million. But Emap has

earmarked another pounds 6 million for investment across its UK online

businesses and magazine titles over the next six months. A further

pounds 3 million will be invested in content-based interactive sites to

match its radio brands.

This article was first published on Campaign