Entrepreneur Aims Computerized Coupons at High-End Market
Jeffrey Weinberg of Camarillo is a longtime coupon collector. So he knows how coupons can accumulate, get misplaced or cause a clutter.
Looking to alleviate such potential problems, last year Weinberg entered the coupon business himself. He solicited coupons/ads from Ventura County businesses but, instead of printing them on paper, put them on computer disks to be installed in IBM-compatible personal computers.
In July, Weinberg introduced a three-disk set of his Finger Tips digital coupons, promoting businesses in the Conejo Valley. He recently compiled a similar set for the Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo area. Finger Tips sets are available free at the advertising businesses.
“The best thing about Finger Tips is the coupons don’t go away,” Weinberg said. “You no longer have to use them right now. You can use them six months from now and you can use them as often as you want.”
Instead of clipping them, consumers print out the full-screen coupons when needed. Businesses pay $400 to have their ads on 2,000 sets of disks for six months. For no additional cost, the coupons also show up on Weinberg’s Internet site.
Weinberg’s first Finger Tips set consists of 38 Conejo Valley businesses, including Westlake Independent Honda & Acura Repair, Brett’s Tropical Fish in Thousand Oaks and Action Screenprinting in Thousand Oaks. His 30-business west county edition features Steve Thomas BMW in Camarillo, Spinnaker Seafood Broiler in Ventura and Eva’s Limousine Service in Ventura.
“For the most part, I try to sell to very high-end businesses,” Weinberg said. “I try to sell to businesses like travel agents, computer stores, Internet providers, things that upper-middle-class people go for, because that’s who has the computers and that’s who has the money to buy things. Not all of the ads are focused in that direction, but that’s the goal.”
The idea was enough to lure Bill Riggs, owner of Carmen Plaza Travel in Camarillo. He’s using the Finger Tips coupons to test the waters of high-tech advertising.
“It’s getting to the point where everything is going on the Internet. I thought this was just a good way to start,” Riggs said. “Over the years, people have liked to use coupons, whether it’s for 10 cents off at the drugstore or $50 off on a cruise. I’ve always had a pretty good response from them, so I thought I’d see how this would work.”
Riggs hopes computer users scrolling through other coupons will stumble across his. In the first two months of advertising, he said, he received a couple of responses. He said he’d ultimately like to get the same response from computer advertising as he gets from his direct mail approach.
“We get back about 10 percent response from our mailings. Many of them are already clients, but we get a lot of new people too,” Riggs said. “I hope to get three, four or five calls a week [through Finger Tips]. If I saw that, I would jump into a more sophisticated and widespread type of thing.”
Although the coupon world may be turning more and more high-tech, there’s still plenty of demand for paper coupons, say those who produce them.
“I think it’s going to be a long time before we are in a paperless society and every single person is on the Internet,” said Stefanie Avalon, owner of the publication Coupons & More of Ventura. “At least until the near future, there is going to be a place for paper coupons.
“I think that the average consumer is still looking in newspapers and direct mail for offers, though I do think that will change as more and more people have personal computers in their home,” Avalon said.
Avalon distributes 30,000 copies of her tabloid in Ventura. Separately owned Coupons & More publications in Oxnard, Camarillo and Simi Valley have circulations of 24,000 to 34,000 in their regions.
Ventura County, Avalon said, can support such wide circulation. “Coupons have gotten big around here as the economy has declined. Ventura County has become a big coupon-clipping community.”
As the economy has slumped, local businesses also have come to rely more on coupons, Avalon said.
“There was a time when a merchant could put out a pretty ad that said, ‘Here we are,’ ” Avalon said. “That doesn’t work anymore. A merchant has to give an incentive, an offer.”
Whether that offer is best presented on paper or computer remains to be seen.
“With new technologies coming out, I think that couponing will always be a viable way for businesses to get to their local clientele,” said Michael Levine, who distributes 33,000 copies of his Ventura Community Values coupon magazine, with separate versions for east and west Ventura.
“It’s hard to say 20 years from now what is going to be happening,” he said. “Maybe I’ll be doing the same thing, only through some other medium.”
2 County Biotech Firms Post Healthy First Quarters
Two Ventura County biotech companies posted strong profits for the first quarter of 1996.
On the strength of sales of its Epogen and Neupogen drugs, Amgen Inc. of Thousand Oaks reported a net income of $143.6 million for the period ended March 31, a 32% increase over $108.6 million for the same period in 1995.
Total revenue climbed 16%, from $411.2 million in the first quarter of 1995 to $476.9 million in 1996.
Amgen gave much of the credit for its financial success to sales of Epogen, a drug used to stimulate the production of red blood cells in the treatment of anemia. The company reported sales of Epogen at $244 million during the first quarter of 1996, an increase of 23% from $199 million in 1995.
Following close behind Epogen was the drug Neupogen, which stimulates white blood cells and is used to battle infection. People infected with HIV, the immunodeficiency virus linked to AIDS, often have suppressed white blood cell production due to the virus itself or as a side effect of medicines used to treat the virus.
Sales of Neupogen, which in February was approved for use in the United Kingdom on people infected with HIV, totaled $233 million during the first quarter of 1996, up 10% from $212 million for the same period in 1995.
Neupogen is approved for use in the United States in the treatment of cancer patients receiving chemotherapy and for bone marrow transplant recipients. It is also being used by many doctors in the United States, without approval from the Food and Drug Administration, for HIV treatment.
BioSource International of Camarillo also reported gains, though of a lesser magnitude.
The company reported record revenue and earnings for the first quarter of 1996, with net income of $519,748, a 351% increase from $115,194 for the same period in 1995. Revenues increased more than 30% during that same span, from $1.9 million in 1995 to $2.5 million in 1996.
Founded in 1989, the company develops and manufactures products used in biomedical research that can help detect certain diseases. Among the company’s products are test kits used to measure the amounts of certain proteins in the bloodstream.
“We continue to pour out new products at the rate of a little over one test kit a month,” said James Chamberlain, president and CEO of BioSource. “It’s really paying off.”
So much so that BioSource recently purchased the $1.49-million building it had been leasing on Flynn Road. The company is also in the process of a $300,000 laboratory expansion.
