CompUSA 2012 Annual Report Download - page 7

Products offered by our Industrial Products segment include individual industrial products in the following categories: material handling;
storage and shelving; workbench and shop desks; packaging and supplies; furniture and office; foodservice and appliances; janitorial and
maintenance; tools and instruments; fasteners and hardware; motors and power transmission; HVAC/R and fans; electrical and bulbs; plumbing
supplies; and safety and medical items.
Sales and Marketing
We market our products to both individual consumers and business customers. Our business customers include for-
profit businesses, educational
organizations and government entities. We have developed numerous proprietary customer and prospect databases.
To reach our individual consumer customers, we use online methods such as website campaigns, banner ads and e-mail campaigns. We are able
to monitor and evaluate the results of our various advertising campaigns to enable us to execute them in the most cost-effective manner. We
combine our use of e-commerce initiatives with catalog mailings, which generate online orders and calls to inbound sales representatives. These
sales representatives use our information and distribution systems to fulfill orders and explore additional customer product needs. Sales to
individual consumers are generally fulfilled from our own stock, requiring us to carry more inventory than we would for our business customers.
We also periodically take advantage of attractive product pricing by making opportunistic bulk inventory purchases with the objective of turning
them quickly into sales. We have also successfully increased our sales to individual consumers by using retail outlet stores.
We have established a multi-faceted direct marketing system to business customers, consisting primarily of our relationship marketers, catalog
mailings and proprietary internet websites, the combination of which is designed to maximize sales. Our relationship marketers focus their
efforts on our business customers by establishing a personal relationship between such customers and a Systemax account manager. The goal of
the relationship marketing sales force is to increase the purchasing productivity of current customers and to actively solicit newly targeted
prospects to become customers. With access to the records we maintain, our relationship marketers are prompted with product suggestions to
expand customer order values. In certain countries, we also have the ability to provide such customers with electronic data interchange (“EDI”)
ordering and customized billing services, customer savings reports and stocking of specialty items specifically requested by these customers. Our
relationship marketers’ efforts are supported by frequent catalog mailings and e-
mail campaigns, both of which are designed to generate inbound
telephone sales, and our interactive websites, which allow customers to purchase products directly over the Internet. We believe that the
integration of our multiple marketing methods enables us to more thoroughly penetrate our business, educational and government customer base.
We believe increased internet exposure leads to more internet-related sales and also generates more inbound telephone sales; just as we believe
catalog mailings and email campaigns which feature our websites results in greater internet-related sales.
E
-commerce
The worldwide growth in active internet users has made e-commerce a significant opportunity for sales growth.
The increase in our internet-related sales enables us to leverage our advertising spending. We currently operate multiple e-commerce sites,
including:
We are continually upgrading the capabilities and performance of these websites. Our internet sites feature on-line catalogs of hundreds of
thousands of products, allowing us to offer a wider variety of computer and industrial products than our printed catalogs. Our customers have
around-the-clock, on-line access to purchase products and we have the ability to create targeted promotions for our customers’ interests.
Table of Contents
North America
Europe
www.tigerdirect.com
www.misco.co.uk
www.tigerdirect.ca
www.misco.de
www.infotelusa.com
www.misco.fr
www.globalcomputer.com
www.misco.nl
www.globalgoved.com
www.misco.it
www.globalindustrial.com
www.misco.es
www.globalindustrial.ca
www.misco.se
www.nexelwire.com
www.misco.at
www.misco.ch
www.misco.be
www.misco.ie
www.inmac
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wstore.com
www.dealopro.com
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