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25.09.2006 Matches online designer shop to take on the might of Net A Porter
22 years ago an ambitious 19 year old, Tom Chapman, had the bright idea of opening a fashion boutique called Matches in Wimbledon Village, since then the business has grown to a total of 10 sites throughout London, covering Notting Hill, Richmond as well as the original Wimbledon Village stores. Never a company to sit on its laurels the Matches story now continues with a move online to challenge the giant of internet designer retailing, Net-a-Porter. With a turn over in excess of £18 million last year from over 75 000 transactions this is no small undertaking. Matches realised, to compete in such a rarefied online environment they would need an exceptional website, which not only represented the brand and image of the existing stores but also replicated the exceptional service which is the cornerstone of the Matches business. Pod1 was enlisted to design, develop and build a fully integrated e-commerce system which would successfully translate the offline brand and image of the stores into a slick upmarket online offering. The site showcases cutting edge designer collections from the likes of Bella Freud, Christian Louboutin, Diane Von Furstenberg, Gharani Strok, Marc Jacobs and Prada all presented with exceptional attention to detail to recreate a true boutique feel. Divided into three distinct sections, the site comprises the online shop, the Look Book and the catwalk and gives customers various options on how they browse the collections. The online shop provides customers with the more classic shopping approach where customers can browse by item or designer, the Look Book showcases every must have item each season and gives the user the option of browsing by category or designer with links which take you direct to the e-shop. The catwalk section contains videos of all the latest fashion shows and collections and like the Look Book has the option to take you straight to the shop, so you can literally buy clothes straight from the catwalk! Matchesfashion.com was launched on Tuesday 19th September and the website had an amazing first few days with 170 000 hits in the first 2 hours and a total of 2500 unique visitors in its first day online, with the first of many sales coming just one hour after going live. These figures would be impressive for any newly launched site, so this is doubly impressive when you consider the competitive market which Matches has chosen to enter.« Back to News
