Technologist turns fashionista

Following his years as an executive at Apple Computer, Samir Arora launched a pair of technology companies in the 1990s, Rae Technology and NetObjects, which he claims helped make the Web what it is today.

Last month Arora launched his latest company, but this endeavor isn't about navigating the 'Net or helping people build Web sites. It's about pairing the correct shoes with the latest look in handbags.

Arora is chairman of Glam Media, and has been the driving force behind Glam.com, a Web site that's part fashion magazine and part shopping mall aimed at women who want to take their browse-about shopping habits online. Powered by complex technology that combines Web publishing capabilities with an e-commerce engine (which will likely be licensed to other e-commerce companies), the site fills the need for women who want the convenience of online shopping from a source that's also authoritative on style, Arora says.

"Women are emotional, aspirational shoppers," Arora says. Men tend to shop in surgical strikes - visit a store, locate desired item, leave as quickly as possible - making the Web an ideal venue for them, while women prefer to meander through different departments and stores, sometimes with no particular purchase in mind.

But the Web has left women behind when it comes to online shopping, Arora says, throwing out the statistic that while 83% of real-world purchases are done by women, they do less than 50% of all online shopping.

Glam.com is out to change that, he says. The site looks like a digitized glossy fashion magazine, complete with celebrity shots, fashion runway photos and style advice. But unlike online versions of magazines such as InStyle and Vogue, Glam.com lets visitors click on and buy just about any item on the site - providing the missing link between female shoppers and the Web. "This is the way the Web was meant to be - it's entertainment-based shopping," he says.

However, Glam.com isn't the first Web site to mix the idea of a magazine and catalog. Lucky, for example, has found success creating this hybrid in paper form, and is making similar efforts on its Web site. And InStyle, a magazine that focuses on the fashion trends of celebrities, also sells certain featured items from its Web site.

One challenge Glam.com faces is building its reputation as an authoritative fashion source, since it doesn't have the print heritage that some of its competitors do, says Patti Freeman Evans, retail analyst for Jupiter Research. "It doesn't have an existing editorial position or place in the market," she says. And in the fashion world, credibility can take a while to build. "You're only as good as your last season."

Powering the site is a Web publishing system called Pepe. To handle the massive amount of content on the site that would change daily, Glam Media's CTO Fernando Ruarte, also a NetObjects veteran, decided the company would need to build a custom application. An Oracle database that lies beneath Pepe is the only packaged software running the site; the remainder was built using open source tools, Ruarte says.