Regular retail turns to Web in a big way

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Related Articles

Web addresses to get more leewayYahoo board to discuss Microsoft offerFoundation behind Wikipedia hires a felon as COOMicrosoft, Google, Yahoo to settle gambling claims

: video to entice fashion-conscious shoppers. The Seattle clothing company calls them “Designed to Inspire” videos.

In the videos, designer Michelle Smith talks about her favourite pieces in the Milly Fall 2008 collection.

Shoppers can click on an article of clothing and watch the designer talk about how to wear the piece. The designer clothes are priced between $245 and $850. Despite online’s promises, the Moody’s report issued a warning to investors and online retailers: More focus on online means more potential for things to go wrong.

When Victoria’s Secret’s distribution centre faced problems in the second half of 2007, Limited Brands had to scale back its online lingerie holiday sales to avoid mass delivery problems, according to the Moody’s report.

And when Amazon.com’s Web site crashed in June, the Seattle P-I calculated that the outage could cost the company $29,000 per minute, based on its $14.8 billion 2007 net revenue.

“With higher sales momentum and greater transparency of Internet sales come scrutiny and potential strategic misfires,” the Moody’s report said.

“Even in the best of times, retailing strategy is a series of delicate balancing acts. Online retailing can create one more opportunity for a costly blunder.”