How Steve helped setmould for etail success

Jan 15 2008 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

STEVE Cochrane is a veteran in the eternally youthful world of web-based retailing.

One of the first to launch an etail site, he formed shoe-shop.com with the boss of Pavers shoe chain way back in 1998, surviving the dotcom bubble burst just two years later.

Working from a warehouse near York, they built Europe’s biggest footwear site, earning enough for Steve to buy what is now Psyche in Middlesbrough.

Explaining the exponential rise in etail sales, he says: “People are a lot more confident that their credit details will not be stolen and that they will get the delivery.

“The market will end up getting more and more crowded, though, because every retailer you talk to is launching his own website.”

High value lines, including £359 a pair Rock and Republic jeans, are among Psyche’s best-sellers.

“Internet sales have been up and down, but this past 12 months it’s spiked massively.”