Crystal ball has been cleaned a little. I am seeing another TS comment about NEOM coming out. Based on the recent price action and other developments the buy under may be raised to .40. Also, a secular shift is beginning to play out. The rise in gas prices along the coming increase in postal rates will result in less consumers willing to drive around for the lowest priced item. Retailers will want to nab the customer with direct marketing. Initially, paperclick will give the customer the ability to find the cheapest product. Once the customer goes to the retailers website then the retailer will have a hook to the consumer and be able to directly market coupons to that customer via an umbilical cord known as the cell phone. As 3G rolls out in the US there will be more and more pushed products directly to cell phone users.
Why pay forty or fifty cents to mail coupons hoping it will get to a consumer, when you can directly market to that consumer via the phone. It might seem like spam but could potentially be a big time saver to many. Instead of having to cut coupons every week Kellog or Kraft can directly send coupons to consumer cell phones. When you walk into Giant, Safeway, Food Lion you can use the existing coupons in your phone or find new ones by clicking on the UPC code of the box/can.
Conceptually this is easy. However, implementing this with servers and information management is huge. With the recent improvement in both we are now reaching the point where the potenial of NEOM is coming to fruition. The idea was there years ago but the technology lagged behind. Now we are hanging on the edges of our office chairs waiting to see the next step taken by NEOM.
