Roth Capital Likes The Way Bidz.com Does Business

Roth Capital’s Elizabeth Pierce Friday morning picked up coverage of online jewelery auction site Bidz.com (BIDZ) with a Buy rating and $18 price target. As I noted in a recent post, BIDZ shares have flying lately on no news, although the company recently has been out marketing itself to the Street.

Pierce says the company’s interactive auction mode “is a unique format that eliminates supply chain inefficiencies and delivers great values to customers.”

Bidz buys close-out jewelry, and then auctions it off in a nifty way that is quite different from eBay (EBAY). Go to the site, and you will see auctions in process; you can watch both the countdown on the time remaining on each auction, and watch the top bid increase. As the clock winds down, any higher bid adds 15 seconds to the length of the auction; so the action tends to happen right at the end. It’s actually kind of interesting to watch.

Pierce calls it a “unique model,” which is user friendly, entertaining and “provides relatively instant gratification.”

Bidz.com has a weird history as a public company. The company issued many shares in private offerings before attempting to go public; then an IPO try last year failed when too many of the company’s original shareholders refused to consent to a lock up agreement. Bidz eventually triggered an SEC rule requiring companies with more than 500 shareholders and over $10 million in assets to start filing financial reports. The company listed on the bulletin board in April, and later moved over to Nasdaq. It raised no venture capital; it had no IPO. And yet there it sits, with a market cap of close to $300 million. Sand Hill Road? Wall Street? Who needs ‘em?

BIDZ 3-mo chart:

Comments

[Eba Ebi:]

BIDZ was only picked up by Roth after Bidz presented at Roth's conference. Sounds like essentially a paid promotion. Check the PR's on Yahoo and you'll see it. The stock has recently been pumped and ready to dump by sharpeyed.com. I don't like to use the word "scam" but take it as you will, they sell cheap jewelry at inflated prices.

2007 Oct 27 01:56 PM

[Eba Ebi:]

BIDZ was only picked up by Roth after Bidz presented at Roth's conference. Sounds like essentially a paid promotion. Check the PR's on Yahoo and you'll see it. The stock has recently been pumped and ready to dump by sharpeyed.com. I don't like to use the word "scam" but take it as you will, they sell cheap jewelry at inflated prices.

2007 Oct 27 01:56 PM

[M2M:]

I'm not sure who Bill Shivers is but he is clearly not focused on the financials of the company. Roth is very reputable and only picks up company's that have strong financial performance. Hey Bill, look at the facts before you make comments like this. Or are you only trying to short the stock?

2007 Nov 13 08:39 PM

[M2M:]

I'm not sure who Bill Shivers is but he is clearly not focused on the financials of the company. Roth is very reputable and only picks up company's that have strong financial performance. Hey Bill, look at the facts before you make comments like this. Or are you only trying to short the stock?

2007 Nov 13 08:39 PM

[Ronin:]

They also forgot to mention about how Bidz.com pay their "affiliates" to SPAM the hell out of you day in & day out. I have had to report them to Spamcop.net, Spamhaus.org & the FTC for sending out NONSTOP UCE/SPAM messages to my various email accounts on an HOURLY basis. Over the last few months, I've had to report each individual UCE/SPAM message to Bidz.com directly (customerservice@bidz.... [e-mail]) only to find today that my email address is now banned from sending in the UCE/SPAM reportings.

Bidz.com will now be added to numerous DNS Blacklists under my control, as well as requesting that they be added to other IP, ISP and DNS providers' blacklists pending this action.

Congrats Bidz.com - You suck even more now.

2007 Dec 15 09:11 PM