ebookers.com,
Europe`s No.1 online travel company, announced
today that it has won the European Best E-Commerce Application (B2C) award, at
the inaugural European Retail Solutions(TM) Awards 2001.
The award was given
at a ceremony held in Birmingham, England, yesterday evening, organised by Emap Retail and in association with Deloitte & Touche.
Companies in the business-to-consumer category were judged on a number of criteria including the quality of their customer interface, an ability to understand and serve the needs of their target markets, and the utilisation of Web technologies to their best advantage.
Sanjiv Talwar, Managing Director ebookers.com commented:
“We are extremely pleased that ebookers` success as a leading European Internet retailer has been recognised in this way. Earlier this year US research company PhoCusWright named us as Europe`s largest online travel
agency. Now, Retail Solutions have named us the best in European b2c retail. We have invested a lot of resources and marketing and programming talent to ensure that our customers find our site as easy to use as possible.  We`re continually implementing innovative measures to improve site usability. For example, we`ve just recently added a new industry leading function to our site that allows customers to compare on one page how prices for airlines differ if they fly at different times of the day.  Customers can then quickly make informed decisions based on value and convenience.”
ebookers` “bricks and clicks” business model is proving a winning formula. It has produced sales results ahead of market expectations for all 6 quarters since the company`s flotation in November 1999. In 2000, ebookers delivered gross sales of $154.1m, and in the first quarter of this year alone, gross sales were already over $60m. Over a third of ebookers` customers are repeat buyers - and nearly 90 per cent of customers interviewed say they are likely to use ebookers again.
Judges included Patrick McHugh, group e-commerce director at Sainsbury`s,
Ian O`Reilly, former IT Director at Tesco, and Andy Dyson, director of
Management Solutions at Deloitte & Touche.
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