ecommerce

There's a rumor going round that Opening Ceremony plans to go ecommerce in the near future. It's not a far-fetched idea. Because we couldn't find much of anything on the all-powerful world wide web, we went into the backyard, took out our smallish pad of paper and pencil, and rang the damn store. This is how it went down...more or less...

"Hello, Opening Ceremony"
"Hey there. My friend told me that you guys are starting a website for, like, the store...Is it true?"
"Yeah"
"O rly?"
"Yeah, it's not launched yet but hopefully it will be by the end of the summer."
"Neat. Will there be the same inventory as in the store?"
"Yeah, that's what we are trying to figure out right now. Like, how much to put on the site because our inventory is always rotating you know?"
"Yeah, I do know. That's what I like about you guys."
"Thanks."
"Hey so, are you going to put the Topshop stuff on the site? Hell, are you going to even carry Topshop anymore?"
"Yeah, we're not going to put it on the site because of the new [Topshop] store. We're probably not going to carry it at all once the store opens up."
"Kind of like the Acne thing."
"Yeah, exactly...but hey, we're getting a new delivery of Kate Moss for Topshop today."
"Sweet, I'll tell all my friends."

There you have it folks. Opening Ceremony is going ecommerce and giving the flyover states something to believe in. All we can say is that if Topshop ends up opening at the same time Opening Ceremony goes ecommerce (October-ecommerce never launches on time) fashion will have hit some kind of monumental vortex and our wardrobes might disappear in the middle of the night.

Strap on your padded helmet, Balenciaga's online shop launched late last week. As usual, the bells and whistles are distracting enough to give an innocent online shopper a seizure at their cubicle. This is what troubles us about the big name e-commerce ventures: if someone is going to buy a $2,300 dollar bag, they (or their personal shopper) probably wants to make the transaction in relative peace. That is, if you're slapping down your cc info, you don't want four thousand screens flashing and zipping and flipping all over the place. You want a shopping cart and a 'Thank You' screen (be it a chic one). When we tested this out to make sure we really felt this way about the online shopping process, we noticed another, uh, small detail. Namely, the prices.

On the Balenciaga website, the Maillon bag (our favorite) is $2,295 and on Bluefly, $1,596. Oh, you know, that's only about a one thousand dollar discrepancy. Without the sale, Bluefly still retailed the bag for $1,999 so it's basically the difference between a 2.25% markup and a 2.5% markup. Yes, Bluefly is a horribly unattractive website. Yes, the images on the Balenciaga site make the bag seem like it's actually worth the money. But, no, we do not understand how someone can be savvy enough to buy their designer handbag on the internet and yet not notice this vast pricing discrepancy. Although Balenciaga offers the full range of handbags, and the boutique e-commerce sites do not, there are still these issues. In the end, it's entirely possible that Balenciaga just doesn't give a damn.