Buy.com Improves Sales with Revamped Site, TV Show

Orange County Business Journal, Nov 5-Nov 11, 2007 by Tolkoff, Sarah

Air Force Gives Microsemi $1.6M Contract; Jazz's VP Keynotes Newport Beach Conference

TECHNOLOGY

Aliso Viejo's Buy.com Inc., which hosts an online store that competes with kingpin Amazon.com, is seeing a boost in sales after it redesigned its Web site.

"We did do a wholesale redesign," said Chief Executive Neel Grover. "The people that do come to the site find it a more enjoyable experience."

It added a price comparison feature, video customer reviews and links to third-party retailers that typically don't sell online.

Those features are nice additions, but shoppers are really responding to Buy.com's homegrown video show, Buy TV, according to Grover.

The goal of the 30-minute show is to introduce and demonstrate new products to consumers, Grover said. It includes interviews from makers of the items.

The show debuted on Santa Ana-based public TV station KDOC recently. It's been running for about a year on the site.

Most of the items featured are consumer electronics and are hosted by two longtime Buy.com workers (neither have backgrounds in TV).

"It's actually been very well received," Grover said. "Most of the shows are about new gadgets and technologies. It helps the consumer understand how to use the product over the Internet instead of having to go into a store. It's a down-home, entertaining tech show."

There are some exceptions to the tech-only rule: A few months ago, the members of the rock band Motley Crue came on the show to promote a tell-all book and new album.

The entire thing is shot and produced locally. Grover said it was cheaper to buy the studio and production gear and go it alone rather than outsource the work.

"It wasn't the most inexpensive thing," he said.

The project took about four years to get off the ground.

Privately held Buy.com, which has about 125 workers here, is working on a turnaround.

Not including stockbased compensation, the company reported a profit of about $411,000 for the third quarter, versus a loss of nearly $6 million a year ago.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, the company posted sales of more than $300 million.

Roughly 80% of Buy.com's sales come from consumer gadgets, computers and related accessories, Grover said.

It competes tooth and nail-largely on price-with Amazon, Barnes & Noble Inc. and Best Buy Co.

The company got its start 10 years ago, when it listed just 100,000 items. Today, Buy.com has more than 3 million products.

It's adding new product categories at a rapid clip, including jewelry, clothing, baby and home and outdoor.

Sales have gotten a boost as people get more comfortable buying larger, high-end goods online, Grover said.

"Three years ago, you wouldn't find many people buying 50-inch liquid crystal display TVs over the Internet," he said. "Now, on some days we sell thousands of them."

Air Force Taps Microsemi

Irvine's Microsemi Corp., one of Orange County's oldest chipmakers, said it scored a $1.6 million contract from the Air Force's research arm.

Microsemi is set to supply defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. with chips made of silicon carbide, a hard material suited for high-power, high-temperature devices.

Northrop is the lead contractor on a project for the Air Force Research Laboratory, which is developing lighter and more efficient controls and communication and radar systems for jet fighters.

Most of the work is set to be done at Microsemi's plant in Bend, Ore., which the company got with its $130 million buy of Advanced Power Technology LLC last year.

Microsemi counts customers who make products in the defense, aerospace, medical and automotive sectors, as well as makers of laptop computers and liquid crystal display TVs.

The company's stock has been on a tear lately. Shares are up more than 23% from a year ago, largely on growing aerospace sales.

Jazz's VP Keynoting Conference

Jazz Semiconductor Inc. s vice president of technology and engineering is set to give a keynote speech at the fifth annual Systemon-Chip Conference Nov. 7-8 in Newport Beach.

Marco Racanelli started at Jazz in 2002. He heads up the development, modeling, design automation and design service teams.

He's worked at Jazz's predecessors, Newport Beach's Conexant Systems Inc. and Rockwell Semiconductor Systems group, the chip arm of Rockwell Automation Inc. that spun off to form Conexant years ago.

He's nabbed about 30 patents.

The conference is set to focus on new system-on-chip developments, technologies which combined multiple functions on single chips.

Such chips often contain digital, analog and radio functions on one tiny piece of silicon.

Other speakers hail from Broadcom Corp., Intel Corp., Toshiba Corp., Qualcomm Inc. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc.

Details can be found at socconference.com.

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