Boutiques.com: Go High-Fashion With Google

Nov. 17, 2010— -- Attention Fashionistas: Next time you're ready to spend your paycheck, let Google give you a hand.

As many in the fashion world expected, the tech giant today took the wraps off of a new fashion e-commerce site, Boutiques.com.

Launched with technology made possible by Google's summer acquisition of Like.com, a shopping site with a sophisticated visual search program, the new site lets visitors not only browse colorful virtual boutiques set up by celebrities and designers but create -- and share -- their own personalized online shops.

Visitors to Boutiques.com don't actually complete purchases on the site, but it makes it easy and intuitive for shoppers to identify and search for their favorite styles and items. It also lets them follow the styles of designer, celebrity and fashion blogger "tastemakers."

Boutiques.com makes money when shoppers click through to other e-retailers or brands' online stores.

The site already has about 30 sponsored celebrity partners, including actresses Rashida Jones, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jamie-Lynn Sigler, and a roster of big-name designer partners, including Kate Spade, Oscar de la Renta and Betsey Johnson. (Contrary to previous reports, Sarah Jessica Parker and Katie Holmes are not part of the project.)

"I think Google realized, 'Hey you know what, we really want to innovate here, we want an approach that really understands fashion but is also powered by better technology so we can actually do more,'" said Munjal Shah, Director of Product Management for Google and the former CEO of Like.com. "But it needed to look so different and the experience is so different."

Shah said that for the past 15 years, e-commerce has focused on perfecting the so-called "hard goods" shopping experience, which involves the purchase of books, DVDs, computers, electronics and other similar products.

But the online sale of "soft goods," including clothing, accessories, and home and garden items, has been largely overlooked, he said.

"One of the key insights we had in shopping for soft goods was this idea that we borrowed quite a bit from music and Pandora, which is we believe that in shopping for soft goods, to get it right, one of the big differences it needs to have over shopping for electronics, etc., is that it needs to be an edited, curated experience," Shah said.