Tickets.com, CheckOut.com ring up partnership
The entertainment sites will announce a cross-selling partnership Monday in a joint effort to bolster revenues and expand services.
Under the deal, Tickets.com will sell tickets and provide event information to CheckOut.com as an exclusive partner. In return, CheckOut.com will syndicate its entertainment news and commentary to Tickets.com; the company will also sell entertainment-related merchandise on the ticket seller's site.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The move comes as Tickets.com's shares hover at an all-time low after surging about 20 points when offered to the public last November. The beleaguered company competes with the increasingly ubiquitous ticket vendor Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch, which bought rival TicketWeb last month.
The deal "should help convert more browsers into buyers" said Andrew Donkin, a Tickets.com marketing vice president, in a statement.
Forrester Research, an Internet research firm, predicts that online event ticketing sales will grow to $3.9 billion in 2004 from $300 million in 1999.
"This new partnership makes Tickets.com an even more complete site because of the natural synergy between our two companies," said Richard Wolpert, CheckOut.com's chief executive.
Los Angeles-based CheckOut.com, backed by Disney's Michael Ovitz and The Yucaipa Companies, partnered with Wherehouse Music last year to represent the music retail chain online. Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch is majority-owned by Barry Diller's USA Networks.