[June 5] U.K. e-tailer
StreetsOnline.co.uk
announced over the weekend the launch of
StreetsOnline Xchange,
a portal designed to “shake up” Europe’s entertainment
industry.
StreetsOnline Xchange is a major project that is intended to
carry over a million products over the next eighteen months.
It will source the products from major and specialist suppliers
with the aim of helping users locate hard-to-find and discontinued
books, videos, CDs, etc.
StreetsOnline.co.uk already has a quarter of a million registered
users and says it fully expects to see a million Xchange site
visits each month before the end of the year.
“What will separate StreetsOnline Xchange from other online ventures
is the incredible depth of content and functionality incorporated
on the site,” said Stephen Cole, founder and managing director
of StreetsOnline.
The idea behind StreetsOnline’s new venture is that consumers
are frustrated when they try to obtain entertainment products
— such as a Jaws 2 video — that have been deleted by the
mainstream distributors. Anyone who wants a first print copy of
Batman No.1 needs to finds a specialist supplier, precisely the
task that StreetsOnline Xchange expects to fulfill.
There will be hundreds of thousands of items, fully described
and categorized, on the Xchange site. It will even offer
hitherto unpublished authors and musicians the chance to
put their work online.
StreetsOnline says it aims to streamline the supply chain,
simplifying transactions and reducing market costs. It claims
it will not infringe any existing supply agreements.
StreetsOnline already operates some of the U.K’s most
successful e-commerce sites, including
Audiostreet,
Alphabetstreet,
Gamesstreet, and
DVDstreet.
The new site is intended to be used by businesses as well as
end-users, offering full B2C, B2B and C2C e-commerce facilities.
StreetsOnline says it wants the site to be the “perfect
environment in which to buy, sell, swap or publish” entertainment
products on the Web.
