February 2001

ZapitOver, the fast online "lifestyle" home delivery service launched in London last year, has closed down. Business is said to have been growing steadily, and "went through the roof" on St Valentine's day, but the company admits this was too little too late. Regular orders are reported to have been running at a third of the break-even level of 100 a day.

In contrast to what are termed "big borrowing services" such as Urbanfetch and KoobuyCity, ZapitOver says it required very little investment, and that all creditors are being paid in full. But it blames high-profile dotcom collapses for a general decline in financial support for the sector.

ZapitOver was originally known as WapitOver, capitalising on the expected boom in the mobile Internet. When this failed to materialise it changed its name. In fact, ordinary phone and Internet orders are believed to have exceeded WAP orders all along.

Will Sankey, the managing director of 86 Ltd, the consultancy behind ZapitOver, says the team "is gutted to be closing down," but points out that his consultancy is still in business. It has acquired some prestigious customers ­ including Tesco, for which it produced a CD for offline ordering.