Egghead and Onsale Merge

coug_ writes "Yesterday it was CD-Now and Columbia House. Today, it's Egghead and Onsale. CNet is carrying more details. " So, this is the fourth incarnation of Egghead-flee brick and mortar, then head online, then auctions, now merging.

Humm...

[Chad Page]

A lot of Egghead's problems stem from poor inventory presentation. It's tougher to find a product at Egghead than it is at NECX for instance.

Also their surplus side dosen't have too many great deals. The system prices are higher than Intellesale, and their parts are generally not the best stuff around.

The Onsale merger might be okay - except they're going to run a risk of annoying their retailers... they'll have to be careful.

Finally, good prices?

[KevinRemhof]

Egghead brick-and-mortar stores always had high prices. So, they decided to cut overhead and go online only. They touted avatars, and other "helpful" ideas for shopping, but missed the point: good prices.

Now that they've merged with Onsale, this might change but I doubt it. What they need to focus on is good prices. Whenever I think of buying something over the web, I hit shopper.com to find the best deal. Egghead is never in contention.

What we have hear is a merger of two mediocre companies to form a larger one. This is a step in the wrong direction.

Maybe egghead realizes what they are (not) goot at

[dan g]

Perhaps someone at egghead had the insight to say "look, we're not making money as a convential retail business, let's why don't we enter a ring wheere you don't have to turn a profit to be successful, e-commerce!

Re:Finally, good prices?

[Orion2o6]

Well the problem was that Egghead (a seattle based chain) decided to work strictly with software. Then they implemented some perphrials into their store. However their downfall was that they sold strictly computer software/accessories. They did not venture into console video games like Electronic Boutique and Software Etc.

Internet Stock Prices

[Necromncr]

Did anyone else notice the mentions about how these two and some of their competitors are losing value (and fast -- 80% loss in one year, ouch)?

I hope this is a sign that the market is realizing how absolutely worthless most of these companies are. When AOL, Amazon, and the others of that lot supposedly have billions of dollars in worth but have never posted a single profit, something is seriously wrong. It's very sick when Boeing and General Electric (who make 747s and nuclear bombs) are supposedly worth less than a really crappy "ISP" and an online bookstore. I _hope_ there is a serious paradigm shift in the market soon so that this sort of inflation is curtailed before it reaches the point of October, 1929....

And what will they be called?

[triple6]

OnHead? EggSale?

When Fairchild and Honeywell merged, someone suggested the new company be called "Fairwell Honeychild".

Nuttin' but Spammers

[weave]

Their "surplus direct" site started spamming many of my users years ago. I parked their site into our block list so they get an SMTP 551 error back. All these years, the idiots keep sending to the same list of receipients and every time it bounces back. Like a typical spammer, it looks like they don't even check their NDN messages and clean their lists.

Ever since the spam, I stopped buying from Egghead and never would buy from surplus direct. No wonder they can't do anything right. Spamming doesn't pay.

Re:Internet Stock Prices

[Trepidity]

Well, I wouldn't bet on AOL going downhill anytime soon. Maybe Amazon, but not AOL. AOL has indeed made a profit several times in its long (for an internet-related company) history. It also has extremely good management, who have managed to keep up with changes in technology. Look what happened to Prodigy, CompuServe, and all the other old nationwide-BBS type systems. Only AOL made a successful transition from BBS to internet provider. Now they own WinAmp, Netscape, CompuServe, and a few other companies, so for AOL to fail, all these would have to fail, not to mention the fact that they have over 8.5 million subscribers.

One fun

[Nessak]

Ok. Musicblvd was one of the better music stores on the web, which merged with one not so good. That one then merged with one even worst. Surplus.com direct was a cool company that had decent deals on old parts. They then merged with a company that put an end to there free stuff. Finally, I turn to onsale, which has good shipping and prices, only to find that they merged with a poor company too. The web is turning into a playground for monopolies. I feel like I might be able to find better prices by actually *leaving* my house.

Re:And what will they be called?

[First Post]

Head-On
EggOnHead
Headache
HeadOnSale
EggOnSaleHead

Auctions, but not like eBay - makes sense

[Bubblehead]

For a retailer like EggHead it's reasonable to sell over-stock off at an auction. The easiest way to do that is to buy an auction site (with a good, established name, onSale). Plus, they use the buzz-word "auction" while it's still in the heads of some stupid Wall-Street investors.

Not that this will make two very average companies any better...

Re:One fun

[My_Favorite_Anonymou]

My experience is pretty much similar to yours. I really preferred Musicblvd over CDnow, there's something about the decide and attitude that turn me off. I gave CDnow one try after the merge and then decide to head to yahoo shopping, which I would never do had Musicblvd didn't lost to its enemy.

On the contrary, my first ever online CD was brought from amazon, because IMDB pointed me to. I have religious admiration toward IMDB, that's why I didn't even check other store's price before picking up the credit card despite Amazon's idiotic ads. (Hey can I get some space from Mars, something like that.)

The moral of the story is the You Only Need One Sign, you only need one sign to turn royal customer away.

Right now if I want to buy anything, I go shopping.com first, and then dejanews keywork search, and then ebay, I don't even bother to buy new stuff.



CY