Shopping on the internet is as easy as A, B, C. So says the BBC which, although best-known as Britain's public service broadcaster, last Sunday week began a two-month bus roadshow to help the public shop online, and next week, in partnership with children's imprint Ladybird Books, publishes How it Works, Shopping on the Internet.
How kind of Auntie to hold our hand while we shop online. Except that this initiative has little to do with altruism: the hope is that by encouraging a greater number of people into e-commerce, more money can be raised to help fund BBC radio and TV.
It's a curious rationale, but the BBC is no stranger to such logic. In this case it's all about beeb.com, the corporation's three-and-a-half-year-old commercial internet service overseen by BBC Worldwide, reinventing and better positioning itself to turn a profit.
From its launch, beeb.com has comprised a selection of the BBC's more commercial brands - mainly magazine spin-offs from BBC programmes - revised for online consumption. Limited e-commerce has been available to surfers clicking on banner ads through which they were whisked off to advertisers' own websites.
A strategic review, however, concluded that this in itself was not maximising the potential for a commercial BBC online service. The upshot was the decision to reposition beeb.com, a process that started in December 1999 and culminated in a high-profile, £7m national advertising campaign which kicked off last month.
The beeb.com roadshow and Ladybird book (the latter idea taken from the current advertising, to stress how anyone can learn the best way to shop online) is part of this re-positioning initiative.
"The idea is to establish the [beeb.com] brand with the message that there is a degree of safety and a certain naturalness about doing e-business with the BBC," says Julian Turner, chief executive of Beeb Ventures, the majority-owned subsidiary of BBC Worldwide which runs the beeb.com site. "As a shopping intermediary we offer the safety of a trusted environment and approved third-party partnerships."
So from now on beeb.com is to be known as an internet shopping portal. Surfers visiting the site can select from a variety of subject areas, all of which are directly linked to pre-existing BBC brands ranging from magazines such as Top of the Pops and Gardeners' World to programmes such as BBC Holiday. Each themed area provides online editorial content related to specific types of product. Users can ask experts for advice on which product to buy, or call up other related information.
The next step, however, is the nub of the new beeb.com service. Once users know what they want, they can call up details of different online suppliers - each of whom is a commercial partner in the beeb.com site - to compare price and delivery times. They then click on a preferred supplier to go direct to its site to complete the transaction online. To date, beeb.com has struck deals with 37 commercial partners which are featured on the site. Turner expects this figure to have risen to more than 60 by Christmas.
It is through such commercial partnerships and banner advertising that beeb.com hopes to make money. Partners pay for the BBC association. In return, however, they must provide a good-quality, reliable and fairly priced service that reflects well on the BBC brand. No such relationship will be entered into with any commercial partner on an exclusive basis, Turner adds: "It's not about the BBC becoming an e-tailer," he claims. "It's about being a shopping intermediary which can offer a safe and trusted shopping environment and approved third-party relationships."
It's certainly a step on from what beeb.com was doing previously - and one that is now being funded through a joint venture between BBC Worldwide and US-based internet firm TH Lee Global Internet Managers. This deal, announced in August, involved THLi investing a cool £32.5m in beeb.com and freebeeb.net, the BBC's internet service provider. The transaction valued the two businesses at £240m.
But the new beeb.com is not a development welcomed by Auntie's commercial competitors. Although not funded directly by the licence fee, the programme brands on which it is cashing in are, critics lament. Angela Mills of the British Internet Publishers' Alliance, whose members include not only traditional media owners with online interests but also pure internet-only businesses, expresses concern at the BBC's latest move.
"Because its positioning is 'shop here without trawling around lots of other websites', and because the brands it promotes heavily are all BBC brands developed by licence-fee funding, it's another example of the unfair competitive advantage the BBC has over its commercial competitors," she says.
The BBC's public service sites, meanwhile, should provide no direct link with beeb.com, she adds: "It's not as if they do so for any of beeb.com's commercial rivals." Although Turner stresses that all surfers are doing is moving from the corporation's public service to commercial online sites, and also insists beeb.com gives no undue prominence to BBC brands, Mills counters: "This is little more than paying lip service to open access."
Rob Hersov, chief executive of internet sports service Sportal, meanwhile, does not believe that the BBC should be on the net at all - either in a public service or a commercial capacity. "It is impossible to name one public service they are giving [on the net] that a privately funded company is not providing already," he says. And of the corporation's commercial online activities, Hersov adds: "They should not be doing any of these at all. [BBC Worldwide] should be sold off."
Like it or loathe it, however, BBC Worldwide's brief is to raise funds through commercial activities that can be fed back into the BBC to supplement income earned from the licence fee. Given that this is its remit, Beeb Ventures - like the rest of the internet business - is surely justified in its desire to grow the internet population, not just for itself but for everyone, Turner says.
"What people forget is that if you link the BBC name with e-commerce, then you grow internet business for all," he claims. "If we bring one new person onto the net, then we help everyone, as that person's propensity to go on to transact with other e-commerce sites is significant."
Whether or not this continues to be an acceptable rationale for the public service broadcaster will become clear in coming months with the publication of a white paper on the BBC's future remit, and the expected introduction of a single broadcast industry regulator whose remit will include public service TV and all its related activities - including commercial initiatives online.
