Thursday, June 18, 2009

Example of dotcom Failure

Boo.com was launched in 1999, with appromimately $ 125 millions investment from Bernard Arnault and Benetton. The launching of Boo.com was delayed for 6 months giving reason technical problem which occurred in forming the company. This contributed to the factor which caused the fall of Boo.com.

Apart from that, $ 6 million was also invested into purchasing of fashion ware but due to delayed launching of the company which later on was put into wasted as those fashion ware purchased was founded to be outdated.

Another factor contributes to the fall of Boo.com are not user-friendly feature in the website. Boo.com implemented virtual sales assistant to aid customer is their shopping experience around Boo.com. Instead of providing customer with pleasant shopping experience it fails terribly , customer do not only felt frustrated but they are greeted with slow browsing and irritating technology. It causes Boo.com reputation to fall dramatically despite huge investment made in progress of launching the biggest fashion website on internet.

On the contrary, its poorly designed webpage and unfriendly usability also contributes to its failure. In the internet world, there is rule employed such as the "3 click" rules which states user can reach their designated webpage in not more than 3 click but Boo. com fail to identify this convenience instead its customer needed to go through 5 different graphic before continuing their shopping or browsing. Moreover, Boo.com also limits each customer to 3 transactions in every 20 minutes, it discourage customer to further shop at its website.

In addition, bad planning and marketing of Boo.com played a role in its downturn. Customer turning into internet shopping as they are attracted by cheaper price they're paying compared to retail shop which is also convenient, better prices and faster process. Boo.com did not fulfill any of the stated benefits instead their premium product was not offer any discount quoting value of product will diminished. Whereas, its management did not foresee long-term objective of improving its system. Investor rush into developing of its website and neglected the risk involved as Boo.com lacked the experience of "Brick & Mortar"

As there is no manager to monitor its expenses of constructing and maintaning the website, money was flowing out of the company more than expected. Example is the expenses of website maintenance alone cost 5000 pound monthly which burden its financial situation. Only after 6 months of operation where Boo.com manage to recruit CFO to manage its company. Besides, there is also question raised in the employees benefits and luxury spending which are said to attract and retain good employees. When Boo.com was at the edge of insolvency, its investor refused to invest more money to bail out Boo.com.

Coller, D 2008,The Most Famous Dot.com Failure
: Why Did Boo.com Fail as an E-tailer? What Lessons are there for Existing and Prospective E-tailers?, Accessed by 18th July 2009, Available from http://www.edigitalretail.com/Most_Famous_Dotcom_Failure.pdf

Further reading on the factor of Boo.com failure. click here

1 comments:

SolDiv said...

dot com bubble burst have cause a lot of tech company to close down but in recent years a dot com companies have seen a huge recovery.

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