From Retail to E-Tail and Back
The tumultuous process of sorting out online retailing continues, yet we find brick and mortar openings, too.
Men’s retailer International Male, a division of Hanover, Penn.-based HanoverDirect, this month is closing its only two brick-and-mortar apparel stores, in West Hollywood and San Diego, and opting in favor of its stable and long-established mail-order catalog business, supplemented by its burgeoning growth online [www.internationalmale.com]. International Male was one of the first fashion catalogs to go online in the mid-1990s and then offered one of the first fully secure ordering and fulfillment systems online in 1996. The company continues to innovate on the Web with enhanced product displays, generous affiliate marketing strategies (promoted and powered through the LinkShare system [www.linkshare.net], which shares revenue generated through banners and text links with affiliated sites) and an active, well-targeted e-mail/newsletter program to both its consumer clients and affiliates.
The flip side is online women’s sportswear retailer Lucy.com, which shut down its Web site this month. But Lucy.com is closing its online site in favor of a stronger brick-and-mortar presence with the company’s Lucy stores.
“As of Feb. 9, 2001, our Web store and catalog will no longer be taking orders. We will continue to operate our retail store in New York City, and we will be opening more Lucy stores,” said Vicki Reed, VP Marketing, adding, “The high cost of doing business on the Internet has made it impossible to keep the Web site open at this time. Lucy was born on the World Wide Web, and we hope someday to return to it.”
Lucy’s lesson seems to shed light on the misconception that Internet presence is cheap and easy to produce. The marketing issues alone may have easily led to the demise of Lucy.com. It is now generally believed that getting actual customers to a Web site that has little or no established extra-Web brand-name presence can prove insurmountable for a “pure play” (Web-only) retailer. All but a few select pure-play retailers without an established catalog business or physical retail presence to which to tether itself in today’s multi-channel environment face doom online.
Lucy.com enthusiastically launched just over a year ago with the stated mission to redefine women’s activewear retailing, proclaiming that it would “put a new spin on the shopping experience for more than 20 million active women who participate in fitness and sports activities,” according to CEO Sue Levin back at launch time. A lot was spent on promotion, we conclude, that did not produce sufficient sales.
Lucy.com may be licking her wounds—but it is by no means in ruins. The online retailer’s innovative spirit will turn to brand-building the old-fashioned way, with well-chosen real stores that may find their way back online—with that all-important channel tethered to some practical real-store merchandising experience.Rumors vs. Results
“Why e-Commerce Won’t Die,” a study just released by the well-respected Forrester Research [www.forrester.com], concludes: “Rumors surrounding the demise of e-Commerce have been greatly exaggerated—in fact, they are dead wrong,” according to Christopher M. Kelley, one of the analysts presenting the new report. The company discovered online-shopping sales figures grew nearly 580 percent, from $7.8 billion in 1998 to almost $45 billion in 2000. The report also found the longer shoppers are online the more they purchase online. Consumers who began purchasing less than a year ago are buying at a rate of nine transactions a year. However, consumers with more than five years of experience shopping on the Web make 20 online purchases a year. The study also found that 90 percent of the Web buyers surveyed said that they were satisfied with their most recent Web purchase and 91 percent said they are likely to buy from the same e-Tailer again in the future.Just Launchedhellip;Buzzing Bs—Finally
MAGIC International has finally gotten its vast Business-to-Business (B2B) portal for the apparel industry up and running—more than six months past the original announced launch date. The site is part of the Hive4/B2B network and launched just in time for the Feb. 13–16 run of MAGIC at [www.magiconline.com]. Global industry-wide purchasing, virtual showrooms and marketplaces, sourcing, news and editorial features are all integrated. The site is quite an accomplishment, well worth the wait—and a serious visit. Apparelnews.net is proud to be one of a variety of syndicated news sources feeding the hungry hive.
