Boo.com to make a return?
Boo.com may be revving up to make a return to our screens, if the latest message on its website is to be believed. Previously an Internet shopping site that burnt through an unbelievable amount of funding in just a few months (the exact amount is uncertain, but the lowest estimate I’ve seen is £50 million and most sources put it more in the £100+ million area), it was a symbol of the dot-com boom and bust of the late 1990s/early 2000.
Personally, I am somewhat sceptical about Boo.com’s relaunch because I think that the generic online shopping market (clothes, books, DVDs etc) is more or less sewn up and that any new business will have to look for a niche market in order to be successful (unless it already has an established brand name behind it, but I wouldn’t place Boo.com in that category). I don’t know what its unique selling point is or why I should buy from Boo.com instead of another company, although to be fair I imagine those details won’t come out until the site is launched properly.
For the full story about the original collapse of Boo.com, check out Boo Hoo: A Dot Com Story, a book detailing the rise and fall of the Internet company.