Snap.com and XOOM.com Enter Into Electronic Commerce Agreements and Acquire Minority Equity Stakes in BuyItNow.com L.L.C.
biz.yahoo.com
Monday June 28, 6:02 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 28, 1999--e4L Inc. (NYSE:ETV - news) and BuyItNow Inc., majority owners of BuyItNow.com L.L.C., Monday announced that NBC and CNET's Snap.com, the fastest-growing Internet portal, and XOOM.com (NASDAQ:XMCM - news), a leading direct e-commerce company, will enter into electronic commerce agreements with BuyItNow.com L.L.C., a Web Plaza(TM) of product-focused Internet stores housed at www.buyitnow.com.
As part of their respective agreements with BuyItNow.com L.L.C. (''BuyItNow.com''), Snap.com and XOOM.com will join BuyItNow.com Inc., e4L Inc. and Clear Channel Communications Inc. (NYSE:CCU - news), as strategic partners in the recently formed BuyItNow.com.
Snap.com will receive a 3.6 percent stake in BuyItNow.com, in exchange for providing BuyItNow.com anchor tenancy placements in a co-branded Snap.com ''Gift Shop'' and within a sub-area of the Snap.com ''Home Shop,'' and for related online media and marketing, valued at a total of $10 million.
XOOM.com will receive a 1.8 percent stake in BuyItNow.com, in exchange for $5 million in online marketing and promotion, and will become a BuyItNow.com direct e-commerce partner.
Chris Kitze, chairman of XOOM.com, said: ''A top priority for us is to continue to attract more online buyers to all the great offers we have at XOOM.com. With its focus on e-commerce sales of brand-name products as well as unique, hard-to-find items, BuyItNow.com will be a strong strategic partner for us moving forward.''
Edmond Sanctis, chief operating officer of Snap.com, said: ''One-stop shopping is a key component of the Internet portal experience, and Snap.com is always looking to improve the quality and diversity of the goods and services marketed to our Snap Shopping users.
''This agreement with BuyItNow.com will surely strengthen select areas of our shopping services, connecting users to more of what they are looking to purchase online.''
Stephen C. Lehman, chairman and chief executive officer of e4L and BuyItNow.com L.L.C.'s chairman, said: ''We are pleased and gratified that XOOM.com and Snap.com, two of the hottest companies in the e-commerce arena, have respectively joined our alliance to build BuyItNow.com into one of the best-recognized e-tailers on the Web.
''We believe they are a perfect match for BuyItNow.com and an excellent addition to its growth and presence. The powerful combined media forces of e4L, Clear Channel, XOOM.com and Snap.com will help BuyItNow.com attain high visibility, enabling it to stand out as a leading e-tailer.''
Anthony C. Link, president and CEO of BuyItNow.com L.L.C., said: ''We at BuyItNow.com, are committed to making our site the No. 1 online shopping destination of choice.
''These new relationships with XOOM.com and Snap.com will play an instrumental role towards maintaining and expanding our existing customer base, while allowing us yet another vehicle for branding and marketing BuyItNow.com. Our alliances with e4L, Clear Channel and now, XOOM.com and Snap.com will allow us to create and retain the market presence necessary to stay ahead of leading e-commerce competitors.''
The percentage ownership of the new company will be as follows: e4L will own 48.7 percent of the new company; BuyItNow Inc. will own 41.4 percent; Clear Channel will own 4.5 percent; Snap.com will own 3.6 percent; and XOOM.com will own 1.8 percent.
About XOOM.com
XOOM.com (www.XOOM.com) offers consumers high-quality, free services over the Web, including homepage building, chat rooms, message boards, HTML e-mail, online greeting cards, a Web page counter, clip art and downloadable software.
XOOM.com has pioneered direct e-commerce on the Internet by targeting its members with product and service offers relevant to their needs and interests. To date, the company has attracted more than 8.4 million members, and according to the May 1999 rankings from Media Metrix, was the 13th most visited site on the entire Web.
XOOM.com, which was founded in September 1996, has headquarters in San Francisco and offices in New York and Paris.
About Snap.com
Snap.com, the Internet portal service company from NBC and CNET (NASDAQ:CNET - news), operates the Snap.com flagship portal service (http://www.snap.com) and the newly launched Snap.com For Higher-Speed Users (http://speed.snap.com), the first-ever service of its kind.
Snap.com's Internet portal services offer users powerful ways to organize and find anything on the Internet. Snap.com's Internet portal services feature content from more than 100 leading Web publishers and are distributed by more than 70 leading Internet Service Providers, telephone and communications companies, PC manufacturers and third-party marketers.
At the heart of Snap.com's portal services is a directory of Web sites and more than 500 resource centers, built by a team of editors and reviewers to ensure quality, freshness and usefulness. Users may either search the Snap directory by using keywords, or browse through the directory's 16 topic categories.
Snap.com, the fastest-growing Internet portal, is slated to be merged with several NBC Internet assets and XOOM.com, the fastest-growing community-based site on the Web and a leading direct e-commerce services company, to form the seventh-largest Internet site and the first publicly traded Internet company integrated with a major broadcaster.
The new company, to be called NBC Internet (NBCi), will use Snap.com as its umbrella consumer brand, integrating broadcast, portal and e-commerce services. According to Media Metrix, Snap.com currently has more than 8.87 million unique users per month and XOOM.com has more than 8.95 million users per month.
About BuyItNow.com
BuyItNow.com features thousands of brand-name products as well as unique, hard-to-find items. Ten stores are currently open, with five additional stores to be launched systematically over the next few months. The new company may also acquire additional electronic commerce assets through mergers, acquisitions and strategic joint ventures.
The site is particularly acclaimed for its customer-friendly online experience, which includes ''store managers'' or ''e-reps'' who are highly-trained product specialists to find and explain products; specialists in computer hardware, software and the Internet to help with any online shopping problems, and fast turnaround of customer delivery. The ''stores'' in its Web Plaza(TM) include:
-- ElectronicCentral.com (cameras, security systems, stereos, etc.)
-- ForAKid.com (arts and crafts, preschool, stuffed animals, toys,
etc.)
-- ForTheKitchen.com (bakeware, cookbooks, cutlery, gourmet gadgets,
etc.)
-- Gift-O-Rama.com (cigars, collector items, games, personal care,
etc.)
-- HouseDecor.com (candles, Christmas, clocks, lamps, vases, etc.)
-- OutsideLiving.com (barbecues, landscaping tools, furniture, etc.)
-- Tooling Around (automotive, cordless tools, power tools, etc.)
-- YourHomeCenter.com (bath fixtures, ceiling fans, heaters,
lighting, etc.)
-- Completeluxury.com (upscale, unique and hard-to-find items,
etc.)
-- As Seen On TV (e4L's exclusive As Seen On TV products)
About Clear Channel Communications
Clear Channel Communications is a globally diversified media and outdoor advertising company and is a world leader in out-of-home media. Including all pending acquisitions, the company operates, or is affiliated with, 625 radio stations, 19 television stations and approximately 302,000 outdoor advertising displays in 26 countries worldwide.
The company also owns 29 percent of Heftel Broadcasting Corp. (NASDAQ:HBCCA - news), the largest Spanish-language radio broadcaster in the United States. The Company's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ''CCU.''
About e4L
e4L is the world's largest publicly held direct-response transactional television company, selling consumer products via television, radio and the Internet. The company uses this multimedia infrastructure to leverage its e-commerce platform.
e4L broadcasts more than 3,000 half hours of television programming each week throughout the world, reaches 100 percent of television homes in the United States, brings its programming to more than 270 million television households in more than 70 countries worldwide, and provides television, radio and Internet shopping services.
This news release contains forward-looking statements regarding potential future events and developments affecting the business of e4L. The company wishes to take advantage of certain ''safe harbor'' provisions regarding forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, (i) projections of revenues, income or loss, profitability, earnings or loss per share and other financial indicators; (ii) statements of plans or objectives of the company's management or board of directors; and (iii) other statements about the company or the direct response or electronic commerce industries.
The company's ability to predict projected results or the effect of certain events on the company's results of operations is inherently uncertain. Therefore, the company wishes to caution each reader of this release to carefully consider certain factors, including competition for customers; media pricing and access; market conditions regarding buyers and sellers of media; the potential effect of litigation involving the company; the risks of doing business in the United States and the international marketplace; issues related to entering new markets and the electronic commerce industry; the inherent difficulty in identifying successful products, locating efficient suppliers of such products and bringing such products to market in a timely fashion; the uncertainty of the marketplace for initial public offerings and/or for mergers and acquisitions, and other factors, each of which could affect the ability of the company to achieve its projected results and may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed herein. For a description of additional risks and uncertainties, refer to the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's Annual Report and Quarterly Reports.
Note to Editors: To request previous news releases on e4L Inc. or an investor's package, contact Suzanne Flaig at 818/461-6461.
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Contact:
e4L Inc., Encino, Calif.
Bruce Goodman, 818/461-6510, bruce.goodman@e4L.com
Claudia de Llano, 818/461-6467, claudia.dellano@e4L.com
or
BuyItNow.com, Tulsa, Okla.
Marcellus Taylor, 918/294-6000, mtaylor@buyitnow.com
Holly Williams, 918/294-6017, hwilliams@buyitnow.com
or
Snap.com
Robert Silverman, 212/664-2756, robert.silverman@nbc.com
Frances Byrne, 415/875-7913, francesb@snap.com
or
XOOM.com
Roger Maes, 415/288-2568, roger@XOOM.com |
