CDnow, Inc. is growing its operations in an effort to extend the company’s music e-tail reach and further tap into the growing European e-commerce market.
Today’s expansion follows a recently completed alliance between CDnow and MSI of Miami Corp. to create an international distribution hub that will serve more than 37 countries in Europe and the Middle East.
The company said CDnow Europe will also add 100,000 new titles to its current inventory of 300,000 titles.
CDnow Europe plans to provide customers with foreign language translations and a multi-lingual customer service center. Customers will be able to speak with company representatives in
Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian,
Portuguese, and Spanish.
In addition, CDnow said orders shipped to countries outside Europe, the Middle East and the U.S. will benefit from the new distribution center in the shape of lower shipping costs.
European and Middle Eastern companies represented in the deal include:
Austria, Belgium, Corsica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta,
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and Vatican City.
Today’s news comes on the heels of CDnow’s alliance with Lycos Bertelsmann in April. Under that agreement, CDnow was named the exclusive music retailer for Lycos Bertelsmann in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Benelux Countries.
“CDnow is building a better music store for our European and Middle Eastern customers who can now enjoy one-stop shopping for local and U.S. product which is shipped from a centralized location,” said CDnow CEO and President Jason Olim in a statement. “While our focus is on providing the best service and selection in these markets, we continue to work with our colleagues in the music industry to ensure that international issues are properly addressed.”
In addition to music-related offerings, CDnow features libraries of music reviews and editorial content from Rolling Stone Network, MTV/VH1, and College Music Journal. The company also has alliances with Yahoo!, Lycos, Webcrawler, Tripod, Geocities, MTV/VH1, and CBS.com.
CDnow was up +9/16 to 14 7/16 at 11:21AM EST today on the news.
