Virtual Store, Real Shelves
Efi Landau
04.11.1999 18:03
OSCM (One Stop Com), a US listed company also active in Israel, has signed an agreement for the sale of shopss.com business operations to listed company ACMI International. Both companies' shares are traded OTC (Over the Counter) on NASDAQ.
According to the agreement, signed at the end of the week in the US, OSCM will transfer to the American company the business operations of shopss.com, which operates stores and shopping membership clubs on the Internet. The sale includes assets, investments, customer clubs, and ownership of subsidiary shopss.com, which sets up Internet e-commerce sites.
In exchange for the transfer of shopss.com's business activity, OSCM will hold 60% of ACMI, as well as a $1 million cash payment, and another $4 million, to be transferred in the coming months. OSCM will continue to manage and lead shopss.com through US management. OSCM CEO Rami Adler said, "Following this move, management is considering distribution of a dividend, in consultation with economic advisors."
OSCM operates the shopss.co.il virtual mall in Israel, and today, also serves as an Internet supermarket. It facilitates the ordering of consumer products, such as foodstuffs and cleaning materials. The company has a fleet of trucks that distributes the orders to customers' homes.
OSCM operates in other Internet areas too. It is associated or partnered with companies engaging in IP telephony services, and Internet fax, document archiving and filing services. It owns a US computer manufacturer and real-time Internet fax service provider, CCM, operating in conjunction with CMR of Israel.
The merger aims at separating communications business from e-commerce business, and at building two different brand names in two spheres. Initially, Rami Adler will manage the two companies, although he is currently looking for a general manager.
The company was set up by Yisrael Rosenfeld, of Israel, who was one of the owners of Israeli companies the now bankrupt Shani and ActiviNet. Rosenfeld's official status these days is defined as "consultant", and the company, in effect, operates under his direction, while being managed by Adler. Family member Aharon Rosenfeld holds 11% of company shares.
"Globes" learns that shopss.com is opening in the next few days a large store in Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv, after already opening one in the industrial zone of Herzliya Pituah. The store will have PC stations connected to the Internet, and assistants will help customers enter the company's virtual mall and make purchases. It is a new marketing concept in e-commerce, which, as far as is known, was invented by shopss.com.
The company is famous for its long standing offer of a free computer, in exchange for customer commitment to make monthly purchases of $30 from its virtual mall, over a two-year period. If the customer's purchases in a given month did not total $30, he paid $20 for the use of the computer in that month. The method of free computers in exchange for purchase commitments was tried out in Israel, by ActiviNet, but was a failure.
Yesterday, shopss.com announced that its Israeli Internet sales site has expanded its range of products, and is now marketing consumer products ordered through the Internet, by telephone or fax. The purchases are sent to the buyer, using a fleet of four trucks, each equipped with a freezer and a refrigerator section, and even a heating section, where pizzas can be made in transit, in addition to the regular haulage section.
The shopss.com site sell quality food, domestic and office consumer products, and technological goods. They can be purchased from Israel, and in the international site, through which additional products can be bought, such as books and perfumes, through other Internet stores, like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and more.
Yesterday, for example, the shopping site announced a special offer, in which a customer ordering products valued at NIS 10,000 will receive 30 credit coupons for one purchase a month for the same sum as his purchases in the first month of his joining the buyers' club.
Published by Israel's Business Arena on November 3, 1999 |
