Freeserve Gears Up For Online Christmas

Freeserve UK has signed e-commerce deals with three of the UK’s best known retail brands in anticipation of an increase in online shopping in the run up to Christmas.

The deals with Boots, John Lewis and Tesco are part of Freeserve’s plans to expand its e-commerce portal into a “virtual shopping precinct” intended to attract Christmas shoppers to the internet.

Freeserve hopes that taking well known highstreet brands online will boost consumer confidence in the e-commerce sector, which has suffered due to recent changes in UK online usage habits (see UK Internet Usage Habits Shift).

Freeserve’s director of e-commerce, Stephen Wise, said: “Freeserve’s shopping offer brings together some of the UK’s most trusted retailers providing consumers with the peace of mind they often require when shopping online.”

All three brands will receive premium placements on the shop@freeserve.co.uk channel in the pre and post Christmas period and users will be encouraged to click through to wellbeing.com, johnlewis.com and tesco.com.

Freeserve, which is currently trying to raise its online and offline profile in the face of competition from rival internet service provider AOL (see Freeserve Launches Ad Campaign), was criticised recently for its use of nudism in a TV advert. The ITC received nearly 200 complaints concerning the ad (see

ITC Receives Freeserve Ad Complaints www.freeserve.co.uk

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