he wants the magazine to be "an interactive playground for your mind." The stories will be graphically rich, and, as with fashion magazines, there will be plenty of information on how to obtain the stylin' clothes the subjects are wearing. The difference is that here you'll be able to click on them and buy them. Boom will be updated regularly, but each issue will have special themes, such as "a new way of looking at the body." One story assigned for the dummy issue, for example, was a tongue-in-cheek comparison of the respective workouts provided by action sports (like kickboxing) and their videogame analogs.
Linking it all is a funny, indirect and slightly shocking ad campaign designed by DDB Needham. The ads' running theme plays off the unlikely synergy between the Net and the clothing retail business: A series of computer geeks are depicted in the midst of athletic feats that are painfully unsuccessful, even though they appear to have acquired the finest sporting gear. One is capping off a tough jog by vomiting into a garbage can; another is carried away by an ambulance after biking into a fire hydrant; another is shown falling off an outdoor stairway rail following a botched skateboard maneuver. The more-elaborate broadcast version, which will air in several of the largest advertising markets, was directed by Francis Ford Coppola's son. Remember: This is the fashion biz.
What levels of investment do Boo and Boom represent? Boo.com officials are skittish about discussing finances, but two sources from its banking circle say the company is spending "tens of millions" of dollars. Indeed, Boo's real-estate and salary expenditures are easily seven figures apiece. One apparel company with which Boo.com has a partnership told a fashion-trade magazine that the Web site's initial order was for just under $500,000 worth of merchandise; multiply that by the site's roughly 20 such partnerships and pretty soon you're talking about real money.
The company barely bothers to hide its intention to go public, most likely this fall. What are their chances of success? There are very few precedents. Until recently, apparel retailers have been reluctant to push online sales, for various reasons: They don't want to alienate brick-and-mortar retailers and are afraid of losing their brand identities in the muddy sea of "grey market" sales. Boo.com has managed to convince 20 important brands to abandon those fears.
How did it do it? For one thing, Boo.com is adamant about not being a "discount" site. The stand is meant to reassure apparel retailers that Web consumers won't think their products are cheesy. It's also a central factor of Boo.com's business model, since the company is counting on gross profit margins in some sectors being as high as 100 percent.
Of course, the lack of exclusivity means that the brands could start their own Web operations, or make comparable arrangements with other sites. But Boo.com executives insist they're not afraid. "Ralph Lauren operates his own flagship stores, and he sells his clothes in other stores. There isn't a problem," observes Charlotte Neser, who manages Boo's partnership relationships. She and her colleagues believe that consumers want to mix clothing styles from a wide menu, which limits the threat posed by a single-brand site.
As for other web retailers' sites, the founders' attitude is: Bring 'em on. They are confident, even cocky, that no one is about to reproduce the punishing personal travel schedules they have logged over the last year to sew up the bonds with clothing brands. (CFO Hanlan recalls that in a single recent 24-hour period he was in six airports.)
"I really don't think anyone is going to be able to make all the personal connections we've made over the last year," says Leander matter-of-factly. And Malmsten put it more bluntly: "Who is going to be our competition? Who's going to come into this business at the same level we are already at?" At that point, you couldn't say
