BarclaySquare plans fresh start

Beleaguered online shopping venture BarclaySquare to be relaunched in the autumn

BarclaySquare, the online shopping mall which took just £10,000 in its first 18 months of trading, is to be relaunched in autumn.

The site has been reworked in an easier-to-use format as it tries to attract more custom.

Heralded by creators BarclayCard as the future of shopping when it launched in May 1995, Barclay-Square?s subsequent performance has been described as a "learning curve".

Its creators now say that transactions are in "hundreds of thousands of pounds", and growing at a rate of 250 per cent, year on year.

It is not known how well individual retailers are doing. Supermarket chain J. Sainsbury took only 1,000 orders for flowers, chocolate and wine in its first 10 months of trading, compared to the £27m annual turnover of its individual supermarkets. No new figures are available from Sainsbury's, or Interflora or Argos.

BarclaySquare senior manager Andy Walden admitted that the company would like to see more growth. "We are looking for a J-curve of performance, to see growth happening as we come out of the learning curve," he said.

He added: "We have seen some stunning growth for the first six months of 1997."

One and a half million visitors have been to the site in the last year. No breakdown between browsers and actual buyers exists.

The new design, by IS Solutions, will be unveiled next month, and is expected to coincide with the signing up of a series of major new retailers.

IS Solutions is expected to bring more commercial clout to the site through its experience with Thomas Cook and Guinness Brewing Worldwide.

Penny Stoniland, studio project manager at IS Solutions, said ease of use was improved, and that new JavaScript programming enables the site to adapt to which browser is being used.