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Technology Stocks : Value America (VUSA) - Another eBay? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jon K. who wrote (509)	7/16/1999 9:39:00 AM
From: Still Rolling	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 734

Jon K and other VUSA longs, The following was just put out by Keith Benjamin in his weekly email newsletter: VALUE AMERICA FORMULA WORKING - We believe now is a compelling moment to focus on Value America, which we believe has been almost completely overlooked in this year's wave of IPOs. While its difficult to point to a magic formula, the basic ingredients of a successful eTailing strategy start with attracting an audience and building brand momentum through above-average customer service. The first step of service is securing supply. Value America effectively offers a direct marketing channel to major brands across a broadening range of consumer and SOHO product and service categories. More brands are attracted by the growing audience, which in turn provides an incentive for the manufacturers to put more resources behind product fulfillment. We have been pleasantly surprised to see some 2,000 brands now represented. We expect the next positive surprise will be membership growth. Value America has established dozens of relationships with large charitable and religious organizations. The marketing method is to have these groups ask their members to shop at a custom Value America store affiliated with the organization. In turn, Value America shares a few percentage points of revenues with these non-profit companies. We believe the response rates on these marketing programs will prove surprisingly high. This provides leverage to Value America's accelerating advertising spending, which is also supplemented by manufacturer rebates for highlighting brand values. As such, we believe Value America can show positive revenue surprises in the June quarter, accelerating through the summer season. Few eTailing competitors are trying to be as broad and aggressive. We find the logic of Value America's program appealing to these multiple partners that can provide competitive and long-term financial leverage.