Unbelievable. I mean _really_ unbelievable. “The Gap”:http://www.gap.com, Gap Kids, Baby Gap, Gap Maternity, Gap Body, and “Old Navy”:http://www.oldnavy.com web sites are offline and according to “USA Today”:http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-08-31-gap-offline_x.htm?csp=34 have been for a while now:
bq.. Hoping to minimize the customer inconvenience, Gap Inc. waited until after most back-to-school shopping had been finished before launching a “soup-to-nuts” overhaul of its major e-commerce sites, said company spokeswoman Kris Marubio.
“We think this is going to make for a more compelling and exciting experience for shoppers,” Marubio said.
The San Francisco-based company isn’t disclosing when the sites will reopen. Instead, visitors are being asked to leave their e-mail addresses with Gap.com and Oldnavy.com so they can be informed when the sites are selling clothes again.
“It’s major project for us so we know it’s going to take some time,” Marubio said. She warned the company may still have to fix some bugs even after the sites reopen.
The continuing closure of Gap.com and Oldnavy.com is likely to put another small dent in Gap Inc.’s sales, which have been sagging in recent months. The slump already has prompted management to lower its profit projections for this year.
Gap.com and OldNavy.com each generated online sales of $236 million last year, accounting for 3% of Gap Inc.’s total revenue of $16.3 billion. Oldnavy.com attracted 4.2 million visitors in July while Gap.com drew 2.6 million visitors, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, a research firm.
Author: One Degree
*A One Degree Exclusive!*
Upstart digital marketing agency “Indusblue”:http://www.indusblue.com just won the work for the official “CBC”:http://www.cbc.ca site covering the “2006 Winter Olympics in Torino”:http://www.torino2006.org/index.php?lang=en. In this exclusive interview, we asked co-founder Darren Pereira about winning the CBC business, the future of Indusblue, and much more.
_Darren Pereira is Director, New Business Development and one of the founders of “Indusblue”:http://www.indusblue.com. Along with brother Dayton, he is positioning Indusblue as a team of creative directors, producers and production talent who deliver online experiences that employ technology along with strategic thinking and stunning creative. His five year goal is to make Indusblue synonymous with the best creative shop in Toronto._
*One Degree: Congratulations on the big CBC Olympic win! What’s the story behind this story?*
Thanks! It’s huge for us as we spent a lot of time and hard work thinking through every detail in our proposed solution.
After we received the RFP, it was a matter of detailed research, thorough proposal writing and providing concrete examples of our skill set. The CBC team was so impressed with the intelligence and creativity of our proposed solutions, that they short listed us and invited us to present our proposal. We also provided references to our existing clients, who love our work. After additional rounds to clarify details, we won the contract.
*One Degree: You went up against some big shops to win this work. Do you think your size worked for or against you?*
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