- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 September 1999 16.39 BST
A second generation internet shopping business aimed at women and expected to notch up annual sales of £70m within five years was unveiled yesterday by Boots the Chemist, and Hollinger Telegraph New Media.
The joint venture, named handbag.com, will be introduced next month straight into a cyber-battle with charlottestreet.com, a rival internet operation from Associated News, publisher of the Daily Mail, which opens in October and is also directed at Britain's 5m web-wise women.
Some estimates are that already 40% of all internet users are women and that soon the number of women regularly using the internet will exceed the figure for men. The ambitious revenue forecasts are based on the way in which women account for more than two thirds of all purchasing decisions.
Both handbag.com and charlottestreet.com claim to be more sophisticated than American versions such as women.com and ivillage. Both also claim to have important pulling power with British women as Associated says some 40% of women internet users read at least one of its newspaper titles while Boots claims that 90% of all women cross the threshold of its stores each week.
Handbag.com says it expects to attract about 10% of all women with internet access as regular subscribers or visitors to one of 18 channels, two of which will be sponsored by its founding partners. The operation, which will be run by just 25 employees, aims to attract other sponsors and says it has some 50 global content partners. Although Boots will be distributing software and promoting handbag.com in all its 1,400 stores, the venture is not designed simply to shift toiletries. Rather, Boots says it sees the internet operation as a way to increase its exposure to a wider range of merchandise such as wines, cars, holidays and financial services.
The investment behind the venture by Boots and Hollinger, parent group of the Daily Telegraph, is said by one executive in the field to be likely to be below the £10m launch costs reputed for charlottestreet.com. Executives from handbag.com said that they expected the business to be profitable after its first three years.
Details of the latest cyber-shopping ventures emerged as NatWest admitted it was to join the internet bandwagon today with a new service for its 6.5m current account customers.
