We have always been big supporters of the Fashion 2.0 revolution that is sweeping across the Internet. But, it must be said that not all of the new sites are adding much value. There are plenty whose value propositions are unclear, whose technology is shoddy and whose business models are overly complex.  To add to this, with the flood of new online communities out there, there is growing consumer fatigue, so getting anyone to pay attention is tougher and tougher.

Meredeth Barnett and Cristina Miller have managed to overcome all of this with their new site, Store Adore, which provides its community with targeted user-generated shopping guides and detailed store reviews. Like the power A&A duo from Gilt Groupe, featured last year on the Business of Fashion, Meredith and Cristina are longtime friends and Harvard MBAs who have complementary skills sets.

The early Store Adore results speak for themselves. Only a few months after launch, 2,200 boutiques are covered on the site and almost 60,000 users are on the Store Adore email list. There is also concrete (if not, early) evidence from participating boutiques that Store Adore is having a positive impact on sales. And, to top it all off, the Store Adore strategy is so compelling (and easy to understand) that it has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Today Show (click on the accompanying video to check it out).

I sat down with Cristina to get the scoop on the StoreAdore business model, hear about the company’s early successes, and understand its plans for the future.

BoF: Quick, tell us. What is Store Adore all about and why do we need to know about it?

CM: Store Adore is the ultimate guide to the best boutique shopping. Whether consumers are scouting new stores or looking for the impossible gift, we help them with in-depth store profiles, exclusive discounts and customized shopping maps.

We describe Store Adore as something like a Zagat meets Facebook – for shopping. The site features editorial profiles of the best boutiques and specialty stores written by locally based writers. Users can create their own shopper profiles, review stores, message with one another, and create and print customized maps of shops.

BoF: How is the Store Adore business model structured? Do you envision being acquired by a bigger player or growing the business on its own?

CM: Our revenue model is based on advertising. After being selected by our editorial team, our featured stores may purchase a section of the editorial page covering their store. Using our proprietary widget, they can create their own ad by uploading photos, a logo, a message, and an exclusive discount for Store Adore users. These discounts are, of course, a big traffic driver to the site, and the program itself gives small retailers a cost effective way to reach out to their target customer beyond print advertising and even Google, which is increasingly too expensive for them.

We also run banner ads and are beginning to do content syndication. We believe that there are several brand expansion opportunities down the road in additional categories, as well as business to business opportunities, which we will build out in the future. We do believe that Store Adore could benefit from a strategic merger down the road, although we are excited to build a standalone business in the near future .

BoF: With all of the online communities popping up on the Web, there is growing fatigue of signing up to join new sites. What have you done in order to incentivise consumers to join the Store Adore community?

CM: We run contests on Store Adore every few weeks to encourage people to sign up and refer their friends. Each prize is worth at least $700 and goes to the person who convinces the most friends to join our community. We have also partnered with many of our stores to tell their customers about Store Adore through emails, postcards or events, which has been great. Our newsletters, which go out about once every two weeks contain truly useful content (such as best online retailers or birthday gift suggestions) as well as the best of our exclusive deals, so that is another reason people want to sign up.

BoF:  Have any stores featured on Store Adore provided you with feedback about what a positive Store Adore rating does for their business?

CM: Yes! Well, Store Adore does not actually rate stores. Our editorial policy is that we only cover the best stores, so all of our stores would earn a top rating. However, we have had a great deal of positive feedback from stores featured on our site, especially those that have bought advertising. National Jean Company, one of our advertisers, told me they had 12 new customers from Store Adore in the first few weeks they were advertising with us, which is fantastic! And our advertisers in Washington, DC who donated about $10,000 worth of prizes for our launch party in February, were thrilled with the publicity and exposure they received from that event.

BoF:  Not many start-ups find themselves featured on the Oprah Winfrey show. How did this come about and what impact has it had on Store Adore.

CM: We were very fortunate to be featured on the Oprah Winfrey show on October 23rd, 2007, although I should be clear that we were part of a larger show on Cathie Black, the President of Hearst Magazines. Cathie has a wonderful book out about how to get ahead in work and life, called Basic Black. We were included because Cathie is a mentor to my business partner, Meredith, and the Show wanted to talk with someone whom Cathie had mentored. The Oprah crew came to New York and filmed us at work and on a “research” trip to a store. Meredith sat in the studio audience during the taping and fielded a few questions from Oprah, herself. Oprah even told Meredith she liked her dress!

The site was supposed to launch in early 2008, but we scrambled and put up a beta site in time for the Oprah appearance. When Oprah calls, you move! It was a dream comes true for us, and we had an overwhelming response in terms of traffic, general interest in the site and media attention. Our “official” launch was February 1, and we were actually also on the Today Show recently.

If you have any comments or questions for Cristina and Meredith, let them be heard. Photos courtesy of StoreAdore.