Buy.com Redesigns Its Web Site to Better Serve Small Businesses

Internet retailer Buy.com Inc. gave its Web site a make-over Thursday, expanding and centralizing its product offerings for small-business customers.

Small businesses constitute more than 20% of the Aliso Viejo firm’s customer base, Chief Executive Greg Hawkins said.

To persuade them to spend more and return more often, the relaunched Buy.com site features a business superstore that adds office equipment, furniture and janitorial supplies to the company’s broadening product menu.

“Clearly, the small-business customer spends more on a per-transaction basis,” Hawkins said. “The economics are better, which is all part of our move toward profitability.”

Buy.com, the nation’s fifth-largest electronic retailer, has moved away from across-the-board deep discounts to a strategy that uses targeted loss leaders to steer customers to higher-margin products.

As a result, its profit margins improved dramatically in the first three months this year. The company still lost $32.8 million, however, and it faces formidable pressure to produce black ink. Soon.

Wall Street has deserted money-losing e-commerce companies. Several, including Boo.com, have died and others, including Drkoop.com, hover on life support. Some could not survive as independent companies and have been sold--including CDNow.com, the online music seller to be acquired by German media giant Bertelsmann AG in a deal announced Thursday.

Buy.com’s shares have lost 61.5% of their value since the company’s initial public offering in February. The stock was unchanged Thursday, closing at $5.