The new managing director of women's portal Handbag.com, looks just how you would imagine.

Nancy Cruickshank wears natural make-up with her Manhattan black clothes and exudes an air of bubbly confidence.

Nancy Cruickshank joined last September

As we exchange pleasantries before starting the interview, she raves about the Boots' Pure Beauty store downstairs from the Handbag office.

A shrewd move, perhaps, as Handbag is jointly owned by Boots and Hollinger Telegraph New Media.

Her ability to effortlessly promote - without seeming obvious - characterises much of the interview as she talks about Handbag's commercial aspirations.

This should come as no surprise - Ms Cruickshank has spent most of her career in the advertising and marketing industry.

Dot.com girl

She is also well-versed in internet start-ups, after helping launch Conde Nast's online operation and founding property site Smove.com with her husband, Jim, in April 2000.

It was not a business that had expanded out of control and that's why it was attractive to me

Smove was later sold to Norwich Union (now CGNU) and merged with Asserta Home, under Ms Cruickshank's guidance.

She was appointed managing director of Handbag.com in September after the site parted company ("by mutual agreement") with Dominic Riley.

"I inherited a slick operation," Ms Cruickshank says.

"It was not a business that had expanded out of control and that's why it was attractive to me."

Her brief is to drive the commercial success of the website, taking it to profitability by March 2004.

'Lifestyle destination'

Handbag.com is typical of the new-breed women's websites - it is neither an online glossy or an etailer, although it does resemble both in some of its activities.

Handbag employs 30 full-time staff

Ms Cruickshank likes to call her site a "lifestyle destination" where women aged 25-45 come to get gossip, fashion guidance, reviews and email, as well as buy products and even their horoscopes.

According to figures audited by ABC Electronic, Handbag has more than 500,000 users, making it the most popular women's website in the UK.

Handbag also runs its own internet service provider, sells content to other sites on a branded or white-label basis, and designs "micro" websites for some of its advertising clients.

Revenue streams

There is certainly more to Handbag than its fuchsia pink web design - and like most sites in the post dot.bomb era, it is hungry to make money.

Most of the revenue comes from deals with advertisers such as Nestle, L'Oreal and Friends Provident.

Meanwhile, commission from selling products for its e-commerce partners, including WHSmith.co.uk and eBay, accounts for about 20% of revenues.

Ms Cruickshank is also looking at charging for access to parts of the sites such as monthly horoscopes, although she adds the business plan is not dependent on this.

"At the moment our users need to phone a premium-rate phone line to get their weekly or monthly forecasts from Shelley von Strunckel.

"As the technology becomes more robust we will offer that facility onsite."

Women online

Handbag is also focused on increasing its revenue from each user, rather than looking to scale up the amount of women that visit the site.

Women online (December)

Women users at home jumped 9% Women users accounted for 52% of all internet users at home Women spent an average of nine hours online Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

About half of its users log on from home, which is an indication of how women's consumption habits are changing.

They watch less television and, according Handbag research, they account for about 44% of the total online population.

Women are also the fastest growing segment of online users.

Despite this, the market for women's sites has not been entirely robust.

In August, publisher IPC closed down its women's site Beme.com, while earlier last year the US site Women.com was snapped up by arch-rival iVillage for �20.7m.

Women.com actually had more visitors than iVillage, but growing losses forced it to seek a partner.

"There will be some more fallout... and it is a tough marketplace, but I'm certainly not out there looking for that critical deal at this point in time," says Ms Cruickshank.

Consolidation?

Handbag's closest rival is Femail, backed by Associated New Media, but Ms Cruickshank says she is not worried by the competition.

"Femail has a slightly older audience to Handbag," she says.

Femail is Handbag's closest competitor

"That's incredibly useful to them, to us and to advertisers.

"Maybe one brand owner, who has a portfolio of brands, may be advertising one with them as a more relevant environment, and one with us."

Ms Cruickshank also deals skilfully with a question about the recent slump in advertising by saying "we always work hard at securing more deals".

"Anecdotally, the media agencies tell us that we are taking the lion's share to target ABC1 women [aged 24-45]."

According to Boots' half year results to September, Handbag's advertising sales were up 60% on the previous year.

New blood

Despite all the talk of commercial enterprise, Handbag is also in the middle of recruiting a new editor with a print background.

P&L figures litter Ms Cruickshank's desk

Two years after it launched, the site seems to be bringing in new blood to begin its next phase of development.

Since she joined, Ms Cruickshank has spent "a lot of time" thinking about the company's strategy and objectives.

Sheets of profit and loss figures litter her desk (in the far corner of Handbag's open-plan office) and she is quick to turn them face-down as we approach.

It appears Ms Cruickshank is more than happy to talk about Handbag, but is careful not to reveal too much about the business's inner workings.

We may be waiting until 2004 before we learn anymore, unless that "critical deal" comes sooner than expected.