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Jungle launches SME site

Bennett hires 20 more staff

Etailer Jungle.com has launched a sister site aimed at SME customers.

Junglebusiness.com is selling computer software, hardware, peripherals and consumables to the mid-sized business sector. The site has only IT-related goods, and will avoid consumer products such as music and videos to distinguish it from the Jungle site.

Steve Bennett, founder of both sites, has hired ten new sales staff for the venture, as well as another ten for the consumer telesales area of Jungle. This brings the total staff number back to 380 employees after a number of redundancies earlier in the month.

Bennett wants 50 per cent of total revenue to be business sales by the end of the year (including corporate sales from the corporatedirect.co.uk site). It shouldn't be too difficult - the figure currently stands at around 45 per cent.

According to research by Kadence, commissioned by Jungle in March, only five per cent of UK SMEs at the time were buying PCs online a figure expected to rise to 11 per cent by March 2001.

Regarding software, the figures were nine per cent rising to 16 per cent, and peripherals five per cent and 11 per cent. Consumable sales were due to see most growth in this area, increasing from 3 per cent to 12 per cent.

Junglebusiness will not get such a monster advertising campaign as Jungle it will be publicised in trade magazines and trade shows, but there will be no TV or radio ad campaign. The site launched on May 1. ®

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