CollectSports » News » NAXCOM To Acquire ThePit.com

Jan. 18, 2006 - It was announced today that NAXCOM.com Exchange Inc, out of Los Angeles California, has acquired ThePit.com, a Topps Company, for an undisclosed sum.

NAXCOM plans on operating ThePit.com as a separate entity to its own site and will introduce new features and benefits that will enhance the experience for both buyers and sellers. “For instance,” said Eric Beckerman, CEO of NAXCOM “the first thing we are going to do is increase what types of products are made available on The Pit. “Right now ThePit.com only offers a select few graded cards and uncirculated cards,” added Beckerman. “We will look at putting up over 300 new players and over 500 different cards, which will be mainly ungraded cards. This will allow users to buy and sell in bulk quantities. Plus, we will be adding PayPal, a shopping cart feature and much, much more.”

In addition, NAXCOM plans on bringing some of the same marketing innovations that have worked on NAXCOM to The Pit. “As soon as we complete the transition and add the necessary upgrades to The Pit, we will then implement an aggressive marketing campaign similar to what we have done for NAXCOM” said Bill Elder, VP of Marketing for NAXCOM. “Our contests and competitions have been very popular on our site and you can look for us to introduce similar promotions on The Pit as well” continued Elder. “We’ll also be upgrading the home page design as well to reflect some of the ideas we have going forward.”

Both companies have said that during the transition, there will most likely be at least a 2-week delay with the shipment of items. The full transfer from Topps to NAXCOM should be completed by the end of January. “We plan on being pretty aggressive with The Pit as soon as the transfer has been completed,” said Kevin Klein, Director of Business Development for NAXCOM.

“In addition to updating the players that are offered, we also plan to revamp the fees, and implement some additional technology upgrades,” added Klein. “We will also leverage our 15 years in the trade show business and talk to the top dealers to get their opinions about ThePit.com,” continued Klein. “We will then use this input to optimize ThePit. This approach has helped make NAXCOM the #1 sports collectibles site on the Internet and we expect it to help us grow The Pit to new heights as well.”

After all of the changes are implemented, ThePit.com will have a special Grand Reopening weekend on the weekend of March 17 - 19th with prizes, contests and a large list of new IPO's that will begin trading on thepit.com for the first time.

“thePit users will be pleased to know that NAXCOM will be running the site,” added Warren Friss, Topps Vice President.

With this acquisition, NAXCOM now offers sports investors and collectors two great choices:

- ThePit.com where you can invest in buying and selling today’s top sports stars and their Best Rookie Card(s) without having to deal with the inventory...just like the stock market.

- The NAXCOM marketplace with over 100,000 registered users and where the sports collector can choose to take possession from a giant selection of over 5 Million User Listings of Sports Cards, Collectibles & Memorabilia.

Plus, NAXCOM has had nearly 1 Million items sold and every transaction has been safe and secure because of the exclusive NAXCOM Buyer Protection Guarantee.