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They never learn, do they?

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Martin Burns

Member info | Full bio

User since: April 26, 1999

Last login: March 30, 2010

Articles written: 128

Since boo.com went a bit Pete Tong the other week, the creative people have shown a distinct failure to notice that many of the reasons for boo's expensive demise was that the interface was all froth and no usability.

As evidence, I offer their new site, postboo.com.

If anyone lives in or around Buffalo, NY, I suggest you go out and get any kittens you find into a very safe place.

Martin Burns has been doing this stuff since Netscape 1.0 days. Starting with the communication ends that online media support, he moved back through design, HTML and server-side code. Then he got into running the whole show. These days he's working for these people as a Project Manager, and still thinks (nearly 6 years on) it's a hell of a lot better than working for a dot-com. In his Copious Free Time™, he helps out running a Cloth Nappies online store.

Amongst his favourite things is ZopeDrupal, which he uses to run his personal site. He's starting to (re)gain a sneaking regard for ECMAscript since the arrival of unobtrusive scripting.

He's been a member of evolt.org since the very early days, a board member, a president, a writer and even contributed a modest amount of template code for the current site. Above all, he likes evolt.org to do things because it knowingly chooses to do so, rather than randomly stumbling into them. He's also one of the boys and girls who beervolts in the UK, although the arrival of small children in his life have knocked the frequency for 6.

Most likely to ask: Why would a client pay you to do that?

Least likely to ask: Why isn't that navigation frame in Flash?

Submitted by aardvark on June 2, 2000 - 08:01.

At least the non-Flash version looks the same as the Flash version, regardless of whether or not you like it. But don't worry, it's not as many kittens of a site as you might think, there's no interface to speak of... I'll be humane after this one.

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Submitted by MartinB on June 2, 2000 - 08:50.

I'm amazed you got to the non-Flash version - the page had refreshed to the Flash version before I could get my mouse anywhere near the link.

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Submitted by aardvark on June 2, 2000 - 09:14.

There's some merit to keeping Navigator 2.02 installed sometimes...

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Submitted by nimo on June 3, 2000 - 11:40.

I've seen lots of comments on the failure of boo.com. It should have failed because of its web design only. They claim that they were too "high tech", too "advanced". Bollocks. Utter bollocks. The first thing that schocked me when I tried it on the launch day was that it crashed my browser (Netscape on Linux). The second thing ... was that their windows was stuck at 640x480, which made it look like a post stamp on my 1600x1200 19" screen.

But then, what about those other details:

  • They were burning money like there was no tomorrow for the most stupid expenses (travel expenses?)
  • They sold fucking CLOTHES on the internet
  • And on top of that clothes that less than 1% of the general population would buy (golden trainers ... c'm'on!)
  • Last but not least, they were fucking expensive.
  • Oh yeah and their website sucked. But I said that already.

So I hear that head hunters give those guys golden opportunities ... c'm'on! They have shown to be complete losers. If I was a former boo.com employee, I would keep the money and lie about it!

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Submitted by MartinB on June 4, 2000 - 03:23.

They failed because they failed to get the next round of VC funding. The above are all contributing factors to that. I might also add the following:
  • They launched several months later than they had promised investors
  • They were simply in the wrong market. Youth clothing is a highly competitive market globally. The only way you're going to get anywhere is with certain brands, and the brand owners will not permit anyone to do discounting, particularly a startup with no market leverage. And who's going to go online for clothes when you don't get discount to make up for not being able to try the stuff on?
The market actually reacted entirely wrongly to the boo collapse. What it showed was that good business is good business. .com companies without an understanding of business can be as cool as they like, they're still going to the wall. Good .com companies will also be spending money hand over fist to aquire customers (it's an expensive game), but will have a sensible business plan to retain them (which is much cheaper, as the 1st day of any marketing course will tell you). As you have intuited, usability and acessibility from a range of platforms is a core element of customer retention.

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Submitted by dawn on June 6, 2000 - 10:50.

Might I add that their business plan was also very poor? They closed with massive debts, most of which they owe to advertising agencies and to delivery firms. I would have thought that a cheap delivery system, possibly even their own delivery system like they have at crocus.co.uk (though UK only) would have been top of the list. And who in their right mind gives $120 million to a clothes shop, let alone one that is basically a glorified mail order catalogue?

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