Woohoo for Boohoo! Online Retailer raises £300 million from IPO

The story of online retail company boohoo.com is the stuff of  e-business entrepreneurs’ dreams. The business launched in the UK in 2006 and has seen exponential growth since launching globally last year. Boohoo have been in business for six years and started with a mere four employees. Today, they employ over 600 permanent and temporary staff. The business recently made successful entries into the Australian, New Zealand, US and Canadian markets. They now boast customers in over 100 countries worldwide and are excited for imminent launches into other European markets in the coming year.  And this will all be made that much sweeter by the exciting developments that have taken place for the company this past week. Boohoo.com raised £300 million through its initial public offering, when its shares opened at 70 per cent above its 50 pence offer price. This gives the firm a value of around £870 million, a whopping and very impressive amount for a company operating in a market as over-saturated as that of online retail. So what differentiates it from the ‘asos’s’ and ‘misguided’s’ of this world? Well firstly, all its clothes are own-brand and secondly its price points are noticeably lower, with an average price tag of £17. Although, take it from a previous customer, you get what you pay for – it wouldn’t surprise me if the company’s take on excellence was the old saying of ‘quantity before quality’ (and no, I don’t mean the other way around). That being said, credit where credit is due, their expansion is more than impressive with remarkable growth, so they must be doing something right!

Wood, Z. (2014). Family behind Boohoo.com pocket £240m from sale of company shares. Available: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/07/boohoo-sale-company-shares. Last accessed 20/03/2014

irishtimes.com. (2014). Shares in online retailer Boohoo.com jump on debut. Available: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/retail-and-services/shares-in-online-retailer-boohoo-com-jump-on-debut-1.1725202. Last accessed 20/03/2014

Moth, D. (2012). Q&A: Boohoo's Chris Bale on Digital Marketing for Fashion Retail. Available: http://econsultancy.com/ie/blog/9908-q-a-boohoo-s-chris-bale-on-digital-marketing-for-fashion-retail. Last accessed 20/03/14.

What happens when you google ‘Google’.

In all my years of googling, I have never googled ‘google’. No, this is not a witty riddle, but rather a stark realisation on my part, that I have never actually familiarised myself with the many products and services offered by internet giant Google. After some heavy research, I have come to see that their range of products and services is not only vast but some are mind-blowingly advanced. When I heard of a bizarre new product called ‘google glass,’ I could barely believe it- a pair of glasses that display information in a smartphone-like format, that can communicate with the Internet via voice commands. According to google the product was developed to "be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don't”, implying they tackle the everyday struggle we face as humans, to divide equally our time between our smart-devices and our real lives. Other wild google products I’ve discovered include the ‘Google Self-driving Car’- a driverless car project that involves developing technology for autonomous cars and the ‘Google Cultural Institute’- a Cultural Institute bringing together millions of artifacts, with the stories that bring them to life, in a virtual museum. While all these are brilliantly innovative and ground-breaking ideas, I fear for the day where technology completely engulfs our world. I like driving my own car and going to real-life museums. Google offers fantastic services, hell, without it I wouldn’t be able to write this blog, but the thought of what’s to come for us as a result of these technologies makes me worry, as our value as humans seems to dwindle with each click of a mouse.

Houghtan, S. (2013). Google Glass: release date, news and features.Available: http://www.techradar.com/news/video/google-glass-what-you-need-to-know-1078114. Last accessed 20/03/2014.

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Mohan, M. (2014). Over 101 Google Products And Services You Probably Don’t Know. Available: http://www.minterest.org/google-products-services-you-probably-dont-know/. Last accessed 20/03/2014

Doing It For The Women of Ireland: The Naas Natives Taking Shopping With Your Sisters to a Whole New Level

Depending on your relationship with them, shopping with your sisters can be either a lovely day out or your worst nightmare- they may be skinnier than you, have more money than you or are just a good ole pain in the ‘insert-offensive-noun-here’. Shopping itself can be quite a stressful experience. If you’re working under time constraints, the bags are too heavy and you’re not dressed appropriately for the task at hand, one often comes home shattered and emotionally scarred from a day at the sales. However, a trio of fashionable sisters are here to help. Jennie, Sarah and Grace McGinn, originally from Naas, Co.Kildare, are behind Ireland’s new way to shop online. Their start-up company ‘OPSH’ is a new shopping platform that allows users to build their own personalised high street so that people can shop quicker and smarter across their favourite high street retailers with one check-out. Essentially what they’ve done is, created a virtual Grafton St. They’ve taken an impressive new slant on online retail, one that not only targets the consumer, but creates a competitive location for high street retailers too. The more I read about them, the more they remind me of Hiroshi Mikitani and his Rakuten empire. He started with the same simple idea of creating a virtual marketplace, and a business model based on collaboration and communication. As a woman, sister and a paddy, I’m rooting for these savvy entrepreneurs and their clever business.

McGinn, J. (2014). Surviving The Competition. Available: http://image.ie/Living/Work/Surviving-The-Competition/. Last accessed 06/03/2014.

Donohue, C. (2014). Have You Heard? Shopping Stress Forgotten Thanks To New Online Retailer OPSH. Available: http://www.her.ie/style/have-you-heard-shopping-stress-forgotten-thanks-to-new-online-retailer-opsh/. Last accessed 06/03/2014

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Why Rakuten Getting into Bed with Viber is a Good Thing for the Online Superstore’s Stockholders

Hiroshi Mikitani is the brains behind Japanese e-commerce giant ‘Rakuten Inc’. The company boasts an impressive portfolio that includes the ‘Rakuten’ online marketplace, a travel agency, credit cards and even a baseball team. Since the billionaire CEO dropped a whopping $900 million on loss-making internet call and messaging app ‘Viber’, questions over Mr. Mikitani’s decision to pay such an enormous amount of money for customers it is not quite clear whether or not he will make money from has been rampant among Rakuten investors. After announcing its plans to buy ‘Viber’, ‘Rakuten Inc’ plummeted in Tokyo trading. With such a negative reaction from the company and public, no-one would have blamed Mikitani if he backed away and spent his hard-earned cash elsewhere. However, I don’t believe it was that kind of spirit that made Hiroshi Mikitani the owner of the world’s third-largest market in e-business, behind Amazon and eBay. His success was birthed from a desire to provide a shopping experience based on communication and connection. To Mikitani,‘Viber’ will add an extra 300 million customers to his already 200 million-strong worldwide consumer base, to which he can shop his existing products with ease. With one purchase he now has access to half a billion people worldwide. Worth every penny if you ask me. No-one can predict the future, but if I were a sketchy Rakuten investor, I would relax and bet that the ‘Viber’ deal will work out just fine for me, with Mikitani at the helm.

References:

 Frischkorn, B. (2014). Investors Deliver Message on Rakuten’s Plan to Buy Viber. Available: http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/02/17/investors-deliver-message-on-rakutens-plan-to-buy-viber/. Last accessed 03/03/2014.

Tabuchi, H. (2014). As War for Web Messaging Users Grows, Rakuten Buys Viber for $900 Million. Available: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/rakutenjapanese-e-commerce-giant-to-buy-viber-for-900-million/?_php=true&_type=blogs&action=click&module=Search®ion=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%. Last accessed 03/03/2014.

Mikitani, H. (2013). Rakuten’s CEO on Humanizing E-Commerce.Available: http://hbr.org/2013/11/rakutens-ceo-on-humanizing-e-commerce/ar/1. Last accessed 03/03/2014.

Yasu, M & Mukai, A. (2014). Rakuten Drops on $900 Million Deal to Buy Viber Message App. Available: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-17/rakuten-falls-on-900-million-deal-to-acquire-viber-message-app.html. Last accessed 03/03/2014.

Cowen’s the name and contrary to what my name might suggest, this is not a blog on politics or anything of its kind. Unless of course there is a political issue regarding eBusiness, then that would be featured here. I’m new to the blogosphere and according to my research of the world of blogging, a more informal and relaxed tone is preferred, so that’s what I’m going for here. I’m Offaly-bred and Galway-seasoned, or so my Twitter bio says, although my LinkedIn profile describes me merely as ‘Sinéad Cowen. DBS Student. NUI Galway’. The blog will be a relevant review of all things eBusiness. My aim is to blog about current issues surrounding and related to the world of eCommerce, in all its world-wide glory.