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By NOLA L. SARKISIAN

Staff Reporter

Laurie McCartney used to spend hours scouring the Internet, as well as brick-and-mortar retailers, for chic, affordable maternity clothes usually to no avail.

Fed up with the lack of options, McCartney decided to start her own maternity business and cobble together the necessary venture capital all while she was still pregnant.

The result is estyle, an online specialty retailer. Over the next two months, the Harvard Business School graduate and several of her former colleagues from Walt Disney Co. will launch babystyle.com to serve as the firm’s flagship Web site.

“There’s nothing out there. Maternity shopping is not that fun and not that exciting. Yet, it’s the most exciting time of your life,” says the 31-year-old McCartney, who spent four years at Disney as part of a strategic planning group that evaluated and recommended new business initiatives.

She believes the Internet is the perfect way to reach new and expectant parents. While raising her son Jack, now 5 months old, McCartney is serving as company president and chief executive. Several of her fellow Harvard alums and former colleagues at Disney are part of her 10-member team, including her vice president of marketing, director of business development and manager of operations.

“Disney really teaches you the skills necessary to build customer service and how to be flexible in the marketplace and change as you evolve,” says McCartney, who plans to make good use of that expertise, just as other Disney veterans did with EToys and Cooking.com.

McCartney believes an online maternity business is a natural. Projections call for online apparel sales to soar from the current $530 million a year to $13.5 billion in 2003.

“Working mothers don’t have time to go shopping every week as they grow, so people are flocking to the Web because of its convenience,” said Evi Black Dykema, an analyst with Forrester Research. “It’s a new and often confusing shopping experience, so an online medium can help guide them through it.”

McCartney plans to cash in by offering lots of consumer information on strollers, cribs and diapers, along with material on child development and other issues connected with pregnancy.

“What we’ll do is give the best information as to why we like products and what you will need for your baby,” McCartney said.

Attracting people to the site figures to be an expensive proposition, especially with existing online firms like BabyCenter Inc., Maternity Mall.com, iBaby.com and Baby’s R Us having a head start.

Although she declined to detail her ad budget, McCartney says the company will advertise in pregnancy magazines and selected online media. Deals also are being negotiated with traditional portal sites.

“One of the most costly aspects of the business is promoting and developing a brand. It’s not unusual to see companies spend $10 million in marketing online and off-line campaigns,” said Nicole Vanderbilt, an analyst with Jupiter Communications.

Vanderbilt says Santa Monica-based EToys spent more than $14 million to build name recognition through the nine-month period ended Dec. 31.

But those costs haven’t stopped a lot of firms.

“There’s always room for more players. The Internet is too young to think that it’s too late for people to come,” said Tory Crimmins, vice president of marketing for San Diego-based iBaby.com.

McCartney is receiving venture funding from Zone Ventures, the Southern California affiliate of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

“Combine management with a great idea for an underserved niche and you’ve got a great possibility. There are other Web sites that are working in this area, but hers is more targeted,” said David Cremin, a partner in the firm.

While the overall market has grown, many major department stores like Macy’s West, Bloomingdale’s and Neiman-Marcus have decided against selling maternity wear, leaving much of the market to specialty stores like A Pea in the Pod and Motherhood Maternity.

“The maternity departments couldn’t keep pace with other parts of stores in terms of margins and profits. A Web site would be a logical fit for it, offering around-the-clock service,” said Ellen Bradley, general manager of retail consulting firm Atkins California.

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