Buyers See Part Numbers, Prices and Quantities for Inventory In-Stock at Verical’s Factory Outlet—without Navigating to Verical.com

• Firefox extension gives buyers immediate, always-on access to Verical inventory information
• Auto-complete feature displays drop-down lists of matches as shoppers key in part number searches
• Download the Verical Toolbar at https://www.verical.com/extensions

SAN FRANCISCO — February 22, 2010 — Verical, Inc., the online factory outlet for electronic components, today announced the Verical Toolbar, a Firefox web browser extension that lets users quickly and easily search the company’s extensive catalog of electronic components through a search box located in the browser bar. With the Verical toolbar, buyers can browse Verical’s in-stock inventory and bargain prices—without navigating to Verical’s website located at https://www.verical.com. Available now, the Verical Toolbar can be downloaded at https://www.verical.com/extensions/.

“Our new plug-in toolbar gives buyers, engineers and others an instant search tool to spot check prices and availability at Verical without needing to open a new window and navigate to our site,” said Josef Ruef, co-founder and CEO at Verical. “This toolbar is just one of many features that Verical offers to improve the efficiency of its user’s search experience, by rendering data in a way that makes it extremely consumable—information rich, yet easy to understand and act on. Our mission is to provide shoppers with all the data and tools they need to make informed buying decisions as immediately as their circumstances dictate.”

Other customer-driven features recently announced for the Verical Marketplace include the Bid Button, a one-click icon that delivers eye-popping bargains on selected clearance inventory available at https://www.verical.com, and Demand Match™, the industry’s only bulk search tool that matches open requirements with available supply automatically.

After adding the Verical Toolbar to the Firefox browser, users simply type in the part number they are looking for, and the toolbar will display a drop-down list of the parts available at Verical that match the search. To expedite searches, the toolbar’s auto-complete feature guides users as part numbers are keyed-in, by progressively refining the match list with each keystroke entered. Selecting one of the parts from the list will take users to the Verical site, where they can research and purchase the part. Going forward, the company will introduce a Verical Toolbar for Internet Explorer and Chrome.

For buyers who need parts delivered “yesterday,” Verical’s new toolbar provides ready access to factory direct inventory, at discount prices. Keying in the first few digits of a part number will instantly reveal parts orderable on demand, replete with pricing and quantity available.

For more information on Verical, Inc., please visit https://www.verical.com. For additional perspectives, visit and subscribe to the Verical blog at http://blog.verical.com/, and follow Verical on Twitter at @Verical and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Verical.

Additional Resources

Verical Website: https://www.verical.com

Company Overview: https://www.verical.com/about/

Newsroom: https://www.verical.com/about/resources/newsroom.html

Blog: “The Electronic Components Source” http://blog.verical.com/

Verical on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Verical

Verical on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Verical

Industry Insights: presentations, articles, websites; https://www.verical.com/about/resources/industry.html

Counterfeit White Paper: “The Real Solution to Fake Parts: Securing Supply Chains through Data Transparency and Better Market Design”; http://bit.ly/counterfeitwhitepaper

About Verical

Verical is the creator of the Verical marketplace, an online factory outlet for electronic components that provides buyers traceable, branded goods at discount prices. Top manufacturers and franchised distributors publish slow-moving inventory to Verical to optimize prices and yields anonymously. Founded in 2007, Verical is a San Francisco-based start-up backed by Valhalla Partners. The company is experiencing rapid growth with over 27,000 parts available today in the Verical outlet at www.verical.com.

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DemandMatch is a trademark of Verical, Inc. All other brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Tags: Verical Marketplace Toolbar, Firefox, browser bar, electronic components, distribution, electronic component catalog, electronic components factory outlet, excess inventory, online catalog, shortage purchasing, shortages, supply chain, supply chain integrity, supply chain security, inventory, manufacturing, Bid Button, DemandMatch, Internet Explorer, Chrome

Media Contact:

Susan D’Elia, media relations for Verical

TECHMarket Communications

650.344.1260

Susan@TECHMarket.com

It turns out that purchasing agents and other corporate buyers are no more forgiving than their consumer-oriented counterparts when it comes to slow, bulky ecommerce sites. And that frustration is playing a large role in the trend to make the online shopping experience faster, more efficient, and more convenient for B2B buyers.

In the electronic components market, major players are revamping their B2B sites with B2C perspectives. Avnet has gone public with its adoption of best practices from consumer sites like Amazon.com. In doing so, company officials admitted that on its previous ecommerce site, “many of our customers had to either be really patient or simply stubborn to make a successful purchase.”

Avnet’s investments in website upgrades have favorably influenced its bottom line. Since refreshing its B2B site, Avnet has seen a 75 percent annual increase in ecommerce revenue and a 50 percent annual increase in site visitors. Similarly, distributors like Premier Farnell, TTI, RS, and Digi-Key have seen their web sales soar. In fact, Digi-Key reports that 66 percent of its sales were received over the web.

Companies that lead the advances in online commerce do so by optimizing their websites to serve a specific buying audience. In electronic components, that audience is the array of buyers with time-critical requirements that use the web heavily to make purchases. For example, production buyers turn to the web when demand rises in the short term and exceeds planned supply. When this happens, volume buyers immediately become shortage buyers with time critical needs.

Historically, manufacturers and distributors have focused their efforts on forecasted distribution which has meant they have not advanced their online capabilities to optimally meet the demands of buyers with time critical requirements. But that’s starting to change. With the increased emphasis on lean manufacturing and persistent volatility in demand, buyers are facing an ever greater need for “on demand” access to supply.

Now more than ever, buyers want their online shopping experiences at work to be like the B2C experiences they have after hours, at sites like Amazon.com, Priceline.com, and the like. They expect it, and companies like Verical are working to bridge the gap between the online shopping experiences in B2B and B2C ecommerce.

For instance, Verical’s recently-announced Bid Button gives shoppers a way to save extra money by submitting fixed bids on clearance items at prices lower than those published on Verical’s catalog listings. The one-click icon automates price negotiations between buyers and sellers, providing fast, hassle-free negotiations and immediate, definitive results. Buyers get instant confirmation of a bid’s acceptance or rejection.

As end-user demand continues to grow, companies will continue refining their B2B sites to reduce the number of screens, screen refreshes, and steps needed to complete a transaction. By making their sites flatter and faster, these companies reduce abandonment and increase conversion rates. Going forward, buyers can expect more B2C-influenced features like the Bid Button and a better overall B2B online shopping experience.

• One-click icon automates price negotiations between buyers and sellers
• Bid Button eliminates protracted haggling by phone or email, letting buyers know in seconds whether their bids are accepted or rejected
• Industry-first feature only available on Verical

SAN FRANCISCO — January 20, 2010 — Verical, Inc., the online outlet for electronic components, today announced the Bid Button, a one-click icon found on listings of clearance inventory at www.verical.com available from top manufacturers and franchised distributors of electronic components. Clicking the Bid Button (available on selected listings only) enables bargain shoppers to get great deals when bids exceed specially discounted and unpublished reserve prices set by suppliers. Winning bids are accepted instantaneously. Available now, the Bid Button automates price negotiations between buyers and sellers, providing fast, hassle-free negotiations and immediate, definitive results.

A first for the electronics industry, the Bid Button streamlines the typically drawn out, inefficient process of haggling. The Bid Button lets buyers submit bids on select components at below-published prices — and get immediate confirmation of a bid’s acceptance or rejection — as part of the Verical checkout process. Meanwhile, sellers can set both published prices and secret reserve prices at the time they list their components, enabling automated negotiations with bargain-hunting buyers.

“The Bid Button lets buyers and sellers quickly and easily negotiate component prices without haggling,” said co-founder Josef Ruef, president and CEO at Verical. “Nobody wants to spend hours watching bids on auction sites or haggling over the phone or by email. Buyers don’t want to deal with aggressive salespeople. And sellers want an easy-to-use mechanism that optimizes yields on slow-moving inventory assets, without adding new layers of cost or complexity to their operations. With the Bid Button, buyers offer prices they are willing to pay, and sellers set secret prices they are willing to accept that are lower than published prices on the listing. We’ve managed to conveniently generate the best prices for buyers and sellers alike.”

Bid Button in Action

A Bid Button icon appears next to any component that a seller is willing to sell at a below-list price. To date, approximately five percent of components in the Verical outlet have Bid Buttons appearing next to them. That percentage will increase over time. Clicking the Bid Button initiates the following bidding process:

• The buyer fills out shipping and billing information, which is submitted along with the below-list bid, e.g., an $0.80 bid for a component listed at $1.00.
• If the seller accepts the bid, the buyer is immediately notified with a message confirming both acceptance and order information.
• If the seller rejects the bid, the buyer is immediately notified with a message confirming rejection and inviting a second, higher bid.

Ruef added, “A buyer might balk at paying a dollar for a component, but be perfectly willing to spend ninety cents. Meanwhile, a seller might be willing to sell that component for eighty cents, but doesn’t want to publish that price publicly for fear of eroding prices in primary channels. The Bid Button gives both parties a quick and easy way to negotiate a transaction that isn’t advertised but makes them both happy.”

For more information on Verical, Inc., please visit https://www.verical.com. For additional perspectives, visit and subscribe to the Verical blog at http://blog.verical.com/ and follow Verical on Twitter at @Verical.

Additional Resources

Verical Website: https://www.verical.com

Company Overview: https://www.verical.com/about/

Newsroom: https://www.verical.com/about/resources/newsroom.html

Blog: “The Electronic Components Source” http://blog.verical.com/

Verical on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/Verical

Verical on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Verical

Industry Insights: presentations, articles, websites; https://www.verical.com/about/resources/industry.html

Counterfeit White Paper: “The Real Solution to Fake Parts: Securing Supply Chains through Data Transparency and Better Market Design”; http://bit.ly/counterfeitwhitepaper

About Verical

Verical is the creator of the Verical marketplace, an online outlet for electronic components that provides buyers traceable, branded goods at discount prices. Verical’s suppliers are top manufacturers and franchised distributors who use Verical’s self-service marketing platform to optimize yields on slow-moving inventory. Founded in 2007, Verical is a San Francisco-based start up backed by Valhalla Partners. The company is experiencing rapid growth with over 27,000 parts available today in the Verical outlet at www.verical.com.

All brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Tags: electronic components, distribution, electronic component catalog, electronic components outlet, excess inventory, online catalog, shortage purchasing, shortages, supply chain integrity, supply chain security, Bid Button

Media Contact:
Susan D’Elia, media relations for Verical
TECHMarket Communications
650.344.1260
Susan@TECHMarket.com