Boo.com dusts down website for June relaunch

Can't be right, can it?

By Team Register • Get more from this author

Posted in Financial News, 24th January 2006 17:01 GMT

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Boo.com - the high profile fashion flop that blew megabucks before going titsup within months of launching - could be about to make a dotcom comeback.

A short message on boo.com's homepage claims that a new site will be launched in June and that a "new website is coming soon". Attempts to contact fashionmall.com - which acquired the boo.com name and website in June 2000 - have so far proved unsuccessful.

There's no suggestion that the relaunch of boo.com will be see a return to the bloated excess, waste and hype (ok, maybe hype, ed) that accompanied its brief time online at the height of the dotcom bubble. But it does provide a fab opportunity to rake over the past and remember the heady days when numeeja was all the rage.

Boo.com launched in November 1999 - five months late - offering "geek chic" to a new net savvy audience. The firm blew millions on technology but a dodgy "virtual shopping assistant" and too many bells and whistles made the site difficult to navigate in a dial-up world.

Within weeks of launching, the business axed 70 staff as it restructured its operation and began heavily discounting goods even though it originally said it would charge top whack for its gear.

By May 2000 the dotcom darling was lying in the gutter.

A year later boo.com headed a list of the 100 "Dumbest Moments in e-Business History" for epitomising all that was wrong in the dotcom world - unrivalled extravagance and excess, poor management and a desire to ignore any form of business or common sense - and for blowing a whopping £178m. ®

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