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Technology Stocks : OnSale Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Norm Demers who wrote (1319)	7/21/1998 11:30:00 AM
From: Rene Madsen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4903

Are we in shorting territorie here?

To: Norm Demers who wrote (1319)	7/21/1998 12:06:00 PM
From: j_b	Respond to of 4903

Business-to-Business is very different from selling to consumers. You have to provide for purchase orders, credit sales, multiple ship-to/bill-to addresses, tracking sales by a variety of criteria in one account (by company, by department, by person, etc.). The product mix is different, the inventory risk is different, customer service needs are different. The business is built on relationships instead of solely on price, especially when it's auction. If you p*** off a consumer, he may still come back for the right price, but companies have much longer memories and are much less forgiving. It is also more expensive to acquire business customers. However, they can provide better margins if you provide a service in addition to a product (consumers don't like to pay for the service), and are loathe to change vendors, so may be cheaper in the long run. It is also easier to cross-sell to businesses, so there is a greater opportunity to increase your revenue/customer or average order size. Much of ONSL's business is already direct to business, but it really doesn't seem to be their focus. Selling to businesses is VERY different from selling to consumer.