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The end of Boo.com

The end of Boo.com came on 18 May  2000, when 

investor funds could not be raised to meet the spiralling 

marketing, technology and wage bills.

Source: Prepared by Dave Chaffey from original sources, including 

Malmsten et al. (2001) and New Media Age (1999).

Questions

1 

Which strategic marketing assumptions and 

decisions arguably made Boo.com’s failure inev‑

itable? Contrast these with other  dot‑  com‑  era 

survivors that are still in business, for example 

lastminute.com, Egg.com and Firebox.com.

2 

Using the framework of the marketing mix, 

appraise the marketing tactics of Boo.com in 

the areas of Product, Pricing, Place, Promotion, 

Process, People and Physical evidence.

3 

In many ways, the visions of Boo’s founders 

were ‘ideas before their time’. Give examples of 

e‑retail techniques used to create an engaging 

online customer experience which Boo adopted 

that are now becoming commonplace.

An essential part of any digital business strategy is consideration of how information systems 

strategy supports change. The importance to digital business success of utilising information 

systems to manage information is highlighted by Willcocks and Plant (2000) who found in a 

study of 58 major corporations in the US, Europe and Australasia that the leading companies 

were astute at distinguishing the contributions of information and technology, and considering 

them separately. They make the point that competitive advantage comes not from technology, 

but from how information is collected stored, analysed and applied.

An established aspect of information systems strategy development is the focus of IS strat-

egy on business impact or alignment. In the