Consumers reject clothes shopping online

With a fair wind and £200 million VC money behind you, anything is possible. Or so you would think. But what if you're flogging clothes over the Net, as Boo.com, the extravagantly-funded sportswear purveyor, is trying to do. You can tell it's got heaps of money - or how else could it afford those incomprehensible ads currently on British TV.

But will it get heaps of customers? In a interesting piece comparing e-tailers with their bricks and mortar counterparts, star Sunday Times business columnist Irwin Stelzer digs up a survey that will be of great interest to Boo.com's backers.

Compiled by NPD, a US market research firm, it show that "e-tailers have a long way to go to crack their bricks and mortar rival's on the clothing market. Nearly half of Net users say they will never buy clothing online and those who are willing to make such purchases seem to concentrate on a few speciality clothiers and on shops that they patronise offline".

Good news for Gap, in other words, and not so good news for Boo.com. ®

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