Boo.com must have had one of the longest run-ups to the launch of
any internet site. In fact, many people were surprised by the 3 November
launch, as they thought it had been active for some time. Now the site
is finally with us, was it worth all the hype?
At a time when differentiating one e-tailer from another is a real PR
challenge, boo.com has managed to secure a number of ’firsts’ for
itself, an increasingly difficult claim.
The sport and streetwear fashion e-tailer is billed as the first truly
global e-tailer. It is a multi-lingual site with multi-currency
facilities, and local deliveries across Europe and the US. It has yet to
be seen how the site will deal with the thorny issue of pricing across
different countries.
The shopping environment is also like nothing ever seen before
on-line.
Customers can rotate any product 360 degrees and zoom in close enough to
see the stitching, thanks to boo.com having the largest 3D library of
product images on the internet. There is also a virtual sales assistant,
Miss Boo, to guide shoppers round the site, as well as mannequins in
’changing rooms’ so items from different brands can be seen
together.
The aim of the trio behind boo.com - Ernst Malmsten, Kajsa Leander and
Patrik Hedelin - is to build a global brand that really does change the
way young consumers shop for cutting-edge clothes. They have backing
from significant investors, including the Benetton family’s private
investment company.
The brightly-coloured site is easy to get around, with fantastic
graphics.
Users can search for clothes not only by colour, price and brand, but by
product category and sporting activity. More than 20 international
brands are currently available on boo.com, including Fred Perry, whose
on-line store is all 1950s-style domestic brown and orange
illustrations.
One of the frustrations of shopping on-line is that you sometimes to
want to talk to a human sales assistant. Boo.com has a 24-hour customer
service centre staffed in London, New York, Munich and Stockholm by
people who fit the profile of the target clientele and can be reached by
telephone or e-mail.
As well as being a shop, boo.com is the home of a magazine, Boom. It has
features on sports, clubbing, news and trend reports written by
reporters from around the world from publications such as Vogue and The
New Yorker.
Boo.com is a sexy site which has achieved the extraordinary feat of
giving consumers the same aspirational feel of walking into a real shop
stocking ’in’ labels. Amazon led the way in buying goods on-line, but
boo.com is destined to pave the way for the next generation of
e-tailers.
Company: Boo.com
Issue: Launch of fashion e-tailer
At: www.boo.com
