| OkayUSA.com By Hal Brown Not every concept loses in translation, so OkayUSA.com, a Norwalk -based Internet company, is hoping American archetypes strike a chord internationally, and with young, Net-savvy U.S. customers. OkayUSA.com, which has been up and running since mid-December, is getting about 10,000 hits per day on the site, said company president Andrew Holster. Holster said America exported its cultural icons to the rest of the world along with its trade goods. OkayUSA uses American symbols ranging from bikers to cowboys and Native Americans on its theme-based. Clicking on an icon's icon reveals a TV screen graphic containing catalog listings associated with each character type. The site has not yet been completely converted, but it should be available in Spanish, French, Japanese, German and Italian, Holster said. Holster says because the Internet in the U.S. is much more advanced than most countries, there's a market to be had overseas. "In Europe and Japan, as well as most of the world, the Internet is not as prevalent, you don't see the dot.com at every turn. Right now we're being inundated with it here--but it's a much newer thing, and much more in its infancy, around the world. We're hoping to take advantage of that. We want to be the first company that really gets the word out overseas." "The web is truly global right now," Holster said. "We feel that the next step most companies are going to take is to translate their sites into foreign languages. Delivery services are delivering overseas and never before could a foreign customer see your site in their language in their own home." "In old times a customer would have to take a catalog back from America or else it was basically impossible for them to get your products." Holster said the site is focused on a young age group. "Right now most of the people that really understand how to use the Internet, are really happy with it and very facile with it, are between 15 and young adults 30 and beneath. That's where we are initially targeted, but as the Internet grows in popularity and more people, more baby boomers and more older people, get used to shopping on line and browsing on line, then we're going to expand our offerings." "What we tried to do is create a format that's easy to browse, so we chose a TV set format. It's much like a TV set at home where people can browse our products basically by changing the channels on the side of the TV. We felt that, since a lot of our purchases were impulse buys, that that favored that. "We found very few sites out there where you can actually browse," he said. "You sort of have to know what you want, then they send you off to a particular category. That's really one of the most unique things" There's a patriotic appeal, too, he said. "It seems like everywhere I look there are American flags and companies identifying themselves with America. That's actually how we got our name. One of the words that's most commonly used around the world is the word 'Okay.' It's a word we've exported to foreign cultures and it rhymes with USA. It's a really catchy name, we feel, and it's words that people who don't speak our language are already accustomed to using." Foreign countries, he said, "have basically taken times in American history and parts of our culture and turned them into sort of fashion statements." "We feel with the foreign customer the themes have a more stylish appeal to them than perhaps they would have with the customers here," he said. "When they hear 'biker' or 'hippie' they have a more generalized idea of what it is, rather than in America where it is associated with so many different things." "I think our most interesting section is perhaps our packages, where we try to give our customers a real taste of America. We have the hippie experience, the biker experience-- we try to pick several products that are exemplary of the particular categories. If it's the biker category we try to have very nice leather jackets. In the hippie category you have to have tie-dye and Lava Lamps and things along those lines." "The most interesting thing about the site is we've tried to include snippets of history and why a particular product is American," he said. "So when we do the Harley-Davidson wallet; we give a little bit of history about Harley-Davidson. When we do a description of a tie-dye there's some description about its place in American history. We hope that people find that interesting." Most items on the site are moderately priced, from around $15 to around $300, but overseas customers also have shipping costs to bear. "We felt that in order for our product line to be successful the (products) had to be fairly exotic, not something that they could get on the ground there, or not a necessity. We don't think many products will be able to make that skip across the ocean-- but because so many of our products are focused on what is considered fashion, or style, or what is considered hot overseas, we feel the cost will be worth it to the customer. It's something that you just can't get there." "Another thing is we have a feedback section on the site and if we hear from say, Turkey that a certain rock group is popular then we can get that on the site. The Internet really allows you to communicate with your customers and communicating with foreign customers is really important to us." |
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