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Overhype

by Mike Masnick

Tue, Feb 26th 2002 3:41pm





Buy.com: The Magazine

from the say-what? dept

Ah, Scott Blum at work again. While he was famous for all sorts of outrageous things in his first go at Buy.com he's been pretty quiet since buying the company back. Now, he's announcing that they're coming out with a Buy.com print magazine, which they loudly say is "a first in the e-tailing industry". Besides the fact that this seems like an incredibly expensive (and incredibly useless) idea, it's also not even close to being a first. I remember eBay's magazine which did not last very long at all. The article also mentions that both Garden.com and Pets.com put out their own magazines. Who wants a magazine from an online store anyway? It's not quite the sort of thing I see people rushing to sign up for.

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  1.  
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    John Q Programmer, Feb 26th, 2002 @ 7:04pm

    If they play their cards right...

    Trilegiant Corporation made this work, only in reverse. They had a created a large offline service (very profitable w/ $500M+ annual revenue) by direct mailing a bunch of people with the oppurtunity to pay $40-60 a year to get a catalog full of discounted brand name stuff. Not many people bought into it, but they sent out so many offers that even a 1-2% response rate allowed them to make boatloads of cash. They then offered this service online and continue to do well. Check out netmarket.com and shopping.com.

    Buy.com could buck the trend, follow a proven business model and actually do quite well if they tweak their plans. Don't know if they've got the brains or the balls to pull it off, tho.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
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    freshgroundpepper, Feb 26th, 2002 @ 10:30pm

    I got it today

    I rec'd the buy.com "magazine" in the mail today. I've been a customer of buy.com many times in the past which, I'm sure, is why I got it. It's not anything close to what I'd call a magazine.
    It's closer to a crutchfield catalog or something, with some small "how-to"/"buying guide" sections that are a few paragraphs in size.
    It's slightly more magazine-like than many catalogs but it's still just a catalog

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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