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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Tokyo Joe's Cafe / Anything goes -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: majaman1978 who wrote (7824)	4/17/1998 11:52:00 AM
From: dental-eye	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34592

Mark, I found this article on PPOD today. It's interesting. D. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peapod to Shop in Warehouses to Ease Losses: Bloomberg Forum Chicago, April 16 (Bloomberg) -- Peapod Inc., a money-losing online shopping service, will soon reduce its dependence on supermarkets by filling grocery orders at central warehouses to reduce costs, the company's chief executive said. Peapod, which uses 600 full-time shoppers to fill orders from customers over the Internet, will get more groceries from new warehouses stocked by its supermarket partners in seven U.S. cities, Chief Executive Andrew Parkinson said in a Bloomberg Forum interview. While customers would still pay supermarket prices, Peapod's more focused buying program will reduce costs and allow it to charge less for a service now used by 71,500. That could boost sales and help end losses that were almost $13 million last year. ''We learned a lot in 1997,'' Parkinson said. ''We learned that if we're able to drive down our price we see huge gains in volume. Price is the number one barrier to new users. And we'll drive that down considerably by centralizing our facilities.'' By organizing its own warehouses, Parkinson said Peapod's professional shoppers will spend less time trying to fill out-of- stock items and the company will better control inventory. While the Skokie, Illinois-based company doubled its revenue, orders and customers last year from 1996, Peapod still lost $12.98 million, or 87 cents a share, on revenue of $59.61 million, compared to a loss of $9.57 million, or 82 cents, on revenue of $29.17 million in 1996. Since its initial public offering in June 1997 at a price of $16, its stock has tumbled almost 60 percent. The shares closed today at 6 11/16, up 1/2 on the Nasdaq. Peapod now offers its on-line service in the metropolitan areas of Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Houston, Dallas, Austin and Columbus, Ohio. The company has six U.S. supermarket chains as partners. The largest is Jewel Foods Stores in the Chicago area, a unit of America Stores Co. Peapod also provides market research to consumer goods companies, collecting online data regarding members' attitudes and purchasing behavior. ''The information side of the business will be a very profitable side of the business,'' Parkinson said. One key to boosting profits from selling market information about its customers is for Peapod to double its customer list to 150,000 households, he said. The company also has plans to expand into two to three new regional markets in 1998, with at least one market likely being on the East Coast, Parkinson said. --Susan E. Miller in the Chicago newsroom (312) 692-3729/ss ÿ