San Francisco-based retail chain GAP inc is testing, a ecommerce web site piperlime.com with 100 shoe brands ranging from $24 to $900. Gap generated online sales of about $600 million on its new site last year, making it the biggest specialty apparel chain online, according to Internet Retailer magazine. In the first half of 2006 Gap recorded a 21% growth in its online sales The market for online shoe sales are expected to reach $2.9 billion this year, and are expected to almost double to $5.7 billion by 2011, according to Forrester Research Inc. Online shoe sales are expected to account for 10 percent of the projected overall $30 billion shoe market in 2006 and Forrester forecasts they will account for 17 percent of total online sales in 2011 Gap will compete with Amazon.com, shoemall.com online shoe leader Zappos.com. Zappos.com offers more than 700 brands in 40 categories. Last month Nike relaunched their website on the Adobe Flash platform with sharply different site display, search and navigation features and offers over 30,000 products

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