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PFSweb, Inc.
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PFSW
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Q4 2006 Earnings Call
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Apr. 2, 2007 |
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Company 5 |
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Ticker 5
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Event Type 5
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Date 5 |
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<Q>: Mark, Ill take it from a different angle. Just as you go into eCOST here, it seems the
driver is youve got to get the revenues up and youve got to get the traffic up. Lets take it
from element of what to take [ph] really going to do that [ph]. If we go with your expertise that
youve improved the infrastructure but its about the marketing initiatives to really drive the
traffic, and what is that going to cost? How soon do you think that can be ramped upwards where
its meaningful where you dont have the gap between run rate and the break even point that you
have now?
<A Mark Layton>: Well the big challenge that weve had in the business has to do with the
fact that the click charges on the shopping bots which was a primary driver of activity to the
eCOST Website had gone up significantly in the last 14 months. When we acquired the business last
year, we were probably looking at an average of 50 or 60 cents per click. Over the holidays, that
got up to over $1.10 per click, and so we have backed way off in terms of that and that has an
impact in terms of driving traffic to the site and ultimately on growth. But as I mentioned, our
focus has been on reducing the break-even point of the business in 06 and not really on revenue
growth.
So the short answer to your question is its probably not by just increasing ad spend on online
advertising. The activity that were undertaking right now has to do with the fact of expanding
our e-mail marketing. We have done a number of things to try to not only better target e-mails,
and much of this has not yet gotten us results because we are just beginning to do this now, as we
had begun to focus on growth really only in the last six weeks or so have we gotten our head back
on how are we going to grow the business going forward? But targeted e-mail marketing is important
for us in terms of because we see high response [indiscernible] marketing list now.
Secondly is the growth in offline advertising activity. We have made some investments in radio
advertising. Were going to be doing more in the catalog front. That will go out in the next few
weeks, where we have seen in the test markets weve done this over the last couple of months; good
response rates from those types of things. And at this point with the online costs being as high
as they are, those are more cost effective customer acquisitions tools for us from there.
Again, we just have not done a lot of investment in new customer acquisition in the last six months
as we went through this transition period. Just in the last few weeks weve begun to focus
attention on what were going to do and Im hopeful that the growth results will come throughout
2007.
<Q>: Okay, do you expect to do any hires in terms of marketing personnel or do you feel you
have the people in place that know what to do and to implement the plan and drive it?
<A Mark Layton>: Well we are using rather than hiring ourselves, were using outside, I
dont know if contractors are the right word, but outside agencies that have specialties in certain
areas. And so thats where our focus is at right now. Weve had a number of people involved in
the business and through that have developed the plans that we have put in place. Some of these
guys are PhDs that understand the whole direct marketing area. Some of these are guys that have
been involved in various successful online stories in the past that have done consulting work for
us. And were also talking to other companies who specialize in customer acquisition and traffic
generation for web sites. And through that weve garnered a variety of different things to help
drive our strategy for e-commerce growth.
<Q>: Okay, all right, thank you, Mark.
<A Mark Layton>: Thanks.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from John Fitzgerald from Bishop, Rosen
& Company. Please go ahead.
<Q John Fitzgerald>: Yes, Mark, throughout the course of 07 do you plan to meet capital by
going to the markets I guess is the better question?
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