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=National Record Mart Plans To Make Move To Web In Dec.>NRMI
12/1/98 15:43
By Philana Patterson
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Later this month National Record Mart
Inc. (NRMI) will join the growing list of companies making moves
on the Internet.
Early Wednesday, the Pittsburgh-based music retailer is expected
to unveil its plans to sell music and other entertainment products
on the Internet.
The site will open for business in the second half of December,
National Record Mart Chairman and Chief Executive William A. Teitelbaum
told Dow Jones. If the site is successful, it is expected to immediately
be accretive to earnings, Teitelbaum said. However, if the venture
is not successful, it should not hurt earnings, he added.
National Record Mart's Web presence will not only cater to
regular consumers, but also will provide retailers with a way
to balance inventories, Teitelbaum said.
National Record Mart will have a site just for retailers to
check a database that uses uniform pricing codes, or UPC codes,
to order music they need. The database will also allow retailers
to sell their overstock to other merchants.
When retailers have too much of an item they can put it on
sale or send it back to music distributors, which typically charge
a stock-balancing fee for returns.
By using National Record Mart's site, retailers can potentially
avoid margin-eroding sales and stock-balancing fees. Retailers
will have to apply to use the service. The service will protect
the privacy of retailers who use it, the company said.
"So retailers won't know whose buyers bought too much of what,"
Teitelbaum said.
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