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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Tokyo Joe's Cafe / Societe Anonyme/No Pennies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lloyd bashaw who wrote (32637)	12/22/1998 7:44:00 PM
From: TokyoMex	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 119973

COOL ,, awesome ,, after X- Mas ,, they will report ,, 500% increase,, Cyberian shows narrower-than-expected loss By Eric Auchard NEW YORK, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Online retailer Cyberian Outpost Inc. <COOL.O> on Tuesday posted a narrower-than-expected loss for its quarter ended in November as spending on merchandising systems and advertising were offset by surging sales of computer products via the Internet. In addition, officials of the Kent, Conn.-based company, a fast-growing Internet-based retailer of computer hardware and software products, said sales had remained strong through the holiday shopping season to date, a few days before Christmas. In a statement, the company said its net loss in the third quarter ended Nov. 30 was $7.6 million, or 34 cents a share, versus a net loss of $1.1 million, or a loss of 12 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. Wall Street had projected a loss of 39 cents a share in the latest quarter, according to a First Call Inc. survey of brokerage estimates. Third-quarter net sales grew to $23.5 million, an increase of about 286 percent over the net sales of $6.1 million for the quarter last year, and a 38 percent rise over net sales of $17 million for the second quarter ended Aug. 31. "We're still tracking just like we were in the last two weeks of November," Katherine Vick, the company's chief financial officer, said during the conference call, broadcast on the Internet, that followed the release of Cyberian's results. "Right now, we're seeing really strong demand right up through Christmas." Cyberian said the number of customers purchasing from its Web site (http://www.outpost.com) increased by 49,000 in the November quarter to 210,000, with nearly a third of the new buyers visiting in just the last two weeks of November. Another 15,000 new customers had bought computer equipment or software from Outpost.com in the first half of December -- the first few weeks of the current quarter and the height of the holiday shopping season, Vick said. Cyberian Outpost attributed the strong customer growth to the launch of its multi-million dollar television and print advertising campaign in mid-November. The commercials, which includes one spot in which a high school marching band is savagely attacked by a pack of wolves, is part of a humorous bid "to get big fast" by reaching the emerging mass market of online shoppers. Marketing spending helped push up operating costs to $10.9 million in the quarter from $1.7 million in the quarter ended November 1997. Cyberian also said purchases from existing customers remained strong, with repeat buyers during the most recent quarter accounting for about 53 percent of net sales, a measure of customer loyalty. Repeat buyers spent an average of $300 on the site, while new buyers averaged around $225. Gross profit margin as a percentage of revenues grew only slightly to 10.1 percent compared with the prior quarter's 9.8 percent, giving rise to concern by some analysts that Outpost may be seeing pricing pressures from other Web retailers. Rival Internet-based retailers of computer products include Buy.com (http://www.buy.com), Egghead.com Inc. <EGGS.O> (http://www.egghead.com) and others. 19:26 12-22-98 Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.