PartMiner debuts new functionality: the former e-company touts profitability, CAPS service - News

Electronic News, July 1, 2002 by Rob Spiegel

PartMiner Inc. has introduced a component information service offered on a subscription basis.

The CAPS Discover service is an extension of the company's existing subscription-based parts research tools, CAPS Advisor and CAPS Expert. CAPS Discover was designed to help engineers find and approve parts for both new designs and design changes that occur when components become obsolete. (PartMiner is partly owned by Reed Business Information, the parent company of Electronic News.)

The CAPS Discover tool draws on PartMiner's mammoth parts database, which recently exceeded 18 million parts, and includes semiconductors, passives, connectors and electromechanical devices, said company officials.

Melville, N.Y.-based PartMiner will continue to make the database available for free searches on a limited basis. Advanced searches that bring a wide range of component information will remain part of the CAPS subscription services.

PartMiner was once the darling of the new economy. The company subscribed to the theory that if you could attract enough eyeballs to your site, you could convert the traffic into commerce, either through advertising or product sales. Thus, it made its extensive databases available at no cost.

The company revamped its business model late last year, emerging with advanced subscription-based information services. In addition, PartMiner continues to sell parts. The company's hard-to-find component sales have long been a commerce backbone.

With the introduction of CAPS Discover, PartMiner also revealed it is profitable year-to-date, a feat unusual among current and former B2B e-commerce companies. PartMiner attributes the black ink to the success of its subscription services, which came from the business revamp.

"The information division shifted from one of transforming the electronic components industry to becoming the first and last stop for procurement," explained Rich Sobel, president of PartMiner's information service department. "Since the beginning of the year, we've been profitable. That was driven by greater-than-expected subscriptions and the strength of our parts services.

Sobel noted that PartMiner intends to continue giving away its basic search services, noting that the site presently has 190,000 registrants. "We had been giving away the content for free to build the community," Sobel, said. "We still have a large community, and we still give away the parts search for free, but we're charging for advanced services."

The CAPS subscription services resemble many of the services launched by franchise distributors over the past 12 months. Arrow Electronics Inc. of Melville, N.Y; Avnet Inc. of Phoenix; and Pioneer-Standard Electronics Inc. of Cleveland have all rolled out large component databases with sophisticated search capabilities. PartMiner, however, still stakes claim to the industry's oldest and largest component database.