Cramer Decker looks to the sky

SANTA ANA, Calif.--When John Peterson describes Cramer Decker Medical's new Web site, he talks a lot about UFOs.

Peterson, vice president of sales and marketing, isn't talking about Unidentified Flying Objects; he's talking about Until Friday Only. As part of its new Web site, Cramer Decker posts a new product each week and sells it at a “ridiculously low price” - Until Friday Only.

One week in late January, for example, it featured an all-in-one, welded commode for $17.95 (usually, it costs $25 to $30). 

“If providers know we're going to have a product on sale every week, they're going to check our Web site every week,” Peterson said. “Then, once they're there, they start looking around. It's a lead in to all of our other products.”

Peterson got the idea for UFOs from www.woot.com, a Web site that, each day, offers a new product, usually electronics, at a rock-bottom price.

Another big change to Cramer Decker's Web site: After logging in and entering their passwords, providers can create custom PDFs from a catalogue. The PDFs feature only the products they're interested in and their pricing (not list pricing).

“That's one of the toughest things for us,” Peterson said. “We get calls from providers who say, 'I'd like to see what you have,' and we send them a catalogue and a price list. They look at the list, and they say, 'OK, what's my real price?' That's always been done over the phone. Now we're able to do it automatically.”

The Web site also features product demos.

“That's another set of calls we were getting: 'How does the conserving device work?'” Peterson said. “So it's pretty nifty.”