Six-Month Sales Top $71M at Bn.com
-- Publishers Weekly, 8/2/1999
A 243% sales increase at barnesandnoble.com for the second quarter ended June 30, 1999 (Highlights, July 26), brought total revenues for the first half of the year to $71.4 million, a gain of 250%. The net loss increased to $42.1 million from $33.2 million.
During the second quarter, bn.com added more than 506,000 customers, brining its customer base to more than 2.2 million as of June 30. The second period also saw the e-retailer's affiliate program grow to over 160,000.
A major reason why bn.com was able to cut its loss in the period by 7% was that it reduced its spending on sales and marketing relative to total sales. In last year's second quarter, bn.com had total sales of $11.4 million, but spent $19.5 million on sales and marketing; in the most recent quarter, bn.com spent $22.9 million on sales and marketing, or roughly 58% of total sales of $39.1 million.
