Aug/Sept 2005

E-commerce and inter-company trading specialist Intershop is to return to the UK market after an absence of several years. The company has teamed up with UK-based Xceliant, a technology business specialising in marketing and sales lead generation, and together they are setting up a business called Intershop UK and Ireland.

The parent Intershop company is based in Jena, Germany, and built up a global presence as the dotcom boom advanced in the late 1990s. Like many in this volatile market, it later had to cut back, and hived off its SME storefront software division, which became ePages. It was still reporting moderate losses in the second quarter of this year.

However, the company now appears to be on the growth path. It retains a strong brand name and still has customers in the UK, and according to Ralf MŠnnlein, the Intershop board member responsible for sales and marketing: 'Intershop simply has to have a presence in the UK market.'

The company has appointed a sales director for the UK and Ireland, Clive Busby, who comments: 'Setting up Intershop in London represents an exciting opportunity to develop relationships with new customers É who are seeing unprecedented levels of demand for online buying across all consumer industries.'

Meanwhile, in further indications of recovery and growth, Intershop recently exhibited at a trade fair in France for the first time in four years, and has announced plans to increase its staff by up to 30 before the end of the year - mostly in sales and consulting.

Intershop customers in Germany include Otto, Tchibo, Deutsche Telekom and Quelle. In the UK, Intershop's Enfinity platform was adopted for the launch of Ocado's online shopping business in the early 2000s.