Halloween relaunch for Boo.com
Published: 10 Oct 2000 10:18 BST
E-commerce casualty boo.com, which was the first big UK startup to call in liquidators, will be relaunched on 30 October. The online fashion site's Web address -- though not its staff or back-end systems -- was bought for $400,000 by American shopping portal Fashionmall.com after its collapse in May.
Boo.com went into liquidation during the dot-com slump in May after failing to raise £20m for a restructuring plan. The e-tailer was reported to have burnt through £85m of startup funding in 18 months.
The domain name, trademarks and some other assets, such as mascot Miss Boo, were bought by Fashionmall.com for more than $400,000 at its liquidation sale in June. The expensive back-end system, developed for launching e-commerce simultaneously in several countries and languages, was purchased by Bright Station.
The relaunched site will contain a catalogue of 250 items that can be purchased through links to e-commerce sites that sell these products. In its second lease of life the site is not attempting to rejuvenate its e-commerce offering, which was held up as a victim of dot-com hype.
The newly installed president Kate Buggeln is undeterred by the high-profile collapse of boo.com last summer. Experts have criticised her for not recognising the importance of restoring damaged customer confidence. Buggeln has gone on record saying "Susie Shopper" would not have heard of and would not care about Boo.com's previous troubles.
Boo.com could not be contacted for comment.
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