Hi everyone...Today, I would like to share some information with all of you about an e-tailer, Boo.com. Boo.com was a British Internet company which founded by Swedes Kajsa Leander, Ernst Malmsten and Patrik Hendelin. Boo.com was launched on 3rd November 1999 and selling premium sports, urban street wear,brandend fashion apparel and cosmetics. It targets on those young individuals who are fashion concious. In 1990s, Boo.com had become the most heavily funded Internet start-up in Europe and the most high profile. This is due to the fact that the company had invested $135million venture capitalists' money in just 18months. However, no longer after, Boo.com went into a place of receivership and liquidated on 18May2000. 
After surfing around, it can be concluded that the downfall of Boo.com is mainly attributed to the reasons below:a) Bad Planning
The founders of Boo.com were too ambitious in their business plan. Unlike the traditional shopkeepers who preferably start their business in small scale and then expand it slowly, its Swedish founders wanted to dominate the market immediately. Hence, they had come out an extremely aggresive growth plan, which is simultaneouly launch the new chain of stores in eighteen European countries. The sizeable vision of Boo.com's founders caused the company suffered with huge costs as a result.
b) Poor Web Design and Usability
Boo.com had relied heavily on JavaScript and Flash techonology with the purpose of enabling the shoppers view the products in 3-D. But, the problem is that, in 1990s, the average user's Internet connection does not have the available bandwidth that is needed for 3-D viewing. This causes the difficulties for the shoppers when viewing the products.
Besides that, most of the shoppers were complaining that they were greeted by poor browsing whereby they had to take 5 users actions and answers 4-5 basic questions before they manage to search for the product informations. This could encourage shoppers visit to others site instead of Boo.com as the users do not need to click more than 3 times to find the information they seek. The others site are much more simple, quick and pleasureable to use.
Moreover, Boo.com is not a consumer-friendly website where it is designed for the shoppers who have 56K modems and above only. This limitations had severely impacted on the revenue earned.
c) Bad Marketing
Even though Boo.com provide the technology which enabled the shoppers to view items in 3-D, but it had ignored the key internet buying diven-lower prices. The products which sold by Boo.com were highly priced and it subsequently tends the result that the shoppers would not enticed to shop at this site anymore.
The founders of Boo.com were too ambitious in their business plan. Unlike the traditional shopkeepers who preferably start their business in small scale and then expand it slowly, its Swedish founders wanted to dominate the market immediately. Hence, they had come out an extremely aggresive growth plan, which is simultaneouly launch the new chain of stores in eighteen European countries. The sizeable vision of Boo.com's founders caused the company suffered with huge costs as a result.
b) Poor Web Design and Usability
Boo.com had relied heavily on JavaScript and Flash techonology with the purpose of enabling the shoppers view the products in 3-D. But, the problem is that, in 1990s, the average user's Internet connection does not have the available bandwidth that is needed for 3-D viewing. This causes the difficulties for the shoppers when viewing the products.
Besides that, most of the shoppers were complaining that they were greeted by poor browsing whereby they had to take 5 users actions and answers 4-5 basic questions before they manage to search for the product informations. This could encourage shoppers visit to others site instead of Boo.com as the users do not need to click more than 3 times to find the information they seek. The others site are much more simple, quick and pleasureable to use.
Moreover, Boo.com is not a consumer-friendly website where it is designed for the shoppers who have 56K modems and above only. This limitations had severely impacted on the revenue earned.
c) Bad Marketing
Even though Boo.com provide the technology which enabled the shoppers to view items in 3-D, but it had ignored the key internet buying diven-lower prices. The products which sold by Boo.com were highly priced and it subsequently tends the result that the shoppers would not enticed to shop at this site anymore.
In short, the cause of failure of Boo.com is that it DID NOT FULFILL the 3 main criterias for web purchases: Ease/convenience, better price and speed of process.
If you guys are interested to know more Boo.com, kindly visit to the links below:
i)www.davechaffey.com/E-commerce-Internet-marketing-case-studies/Boo.com-case-studies
2 comments:
Planning is the key for the success for every business. Anyway, is a good review on the Boo.com
fail to plan means plan to fail mah...
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