Egghead Thrives In Cyber Scramble Online Software Retailer’S Big Market Day Shows Investors Believe In Company

Tue., July 7, 1998

From Staff

Shares of Egghead.com Inc. surged 65 percent after the online software retailer, which employs 55 in Spokane, said fiscal first-quarter revenue from its auction Web site almost doubled from the fourth quarter.

Egghead.com rose $5.81 to $14.81 in trading of 12.3 million, 35 times the three-month daily average, making it the fourth most-active stock in U.S. markets.

The shares are at their highest level since August 1992. Trading in options to buy the company’s stock was the ninth most active in U.S. markets.

Egghead.com, which in January said it would shut its retail stores to sell exclusively on the Internet, had missed the surge in recent weeks as other Internet-related companies soared to records amid optimism that media companies will take stakes in them or acquire them, fueled by NBC’s investment last month in Cnet Inc.

“Clearly they’re beginning to look at us as an Internet company,” said Egghead.com spokesman John Hough. “It has been fair to ask if the company could successfully navigate virtual worlds, and we have chosen to do it quietly.”

Egghead.Com said sales from its auction Web site rose to $13.7 million in the fiscal first quarter ended June 27 from $7 million in the quarter ended March 28.

Hough noted that sales of Microsoft’s Windows 98 software soared into the thousands of units after its release June 25, far exceeding company expectations.

The company cautioned that revenue increases at its other two Web sites might not be as brisk in the latest quarter as it focused on the auction site. The company expects to report its fiscal first-quarter results July 28.

Hough said Egghead.Com, like other Internet companies, has focused on building its customer base and upgrading its technology rather than profitability.

The goal is recognition as a legitimate player in Internet sales, he said.

The number of bidders on the Web site climbed to 168,000 in the quarter from 29,000 nine months earlier, the company said in a statement.

Egghead has three internet sites: www.surplusdirect.com, www.egghead.com and www.surplusacution.com.

NBC is a unit of General Electric Co.

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Egghead Thrives In Cyber Scramble Online Software Retailer’S Big Market Day Shows Investors Believe In Company

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Molly Quinn

Rob Curley

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