Thralow Inc. of Proctor, a company that owns 30 specialty retail Web sites, has been sold to an Omaha, Neb., online retailer with annual sales of more than $100 million.
NetShops Inc. announced Thursday it has closed the deal to buy Thralow Inc. and its Peepers.com, Binoculars.com, Telescopes.com and other Internet sites. All 49 employees will stay with NetShops and continue to run the Web sites. Founder-owner Dan Thralow is now general manager of the Minnesota operations. He said he continues to have a stake in the company.
Sales at fast-growing Thralow Inc. during the past 12 months were $26 million, a 49 percent increase from a year earlier.
NetShops co-founder and CEO Doug Nielsen declined to reveal the company's sale price.
NetShops, a private firm that has more than 300 employees, owns 120 retail specialty sites, including PatioUmbrellas.com, Hammocks.com, DayBeds.com and Dartboards.com. This year, Inc. magazine named NetShops the 13th fastest-growing company in America and the company was voted one of the five best places to work in Omaha for the past two years. It began as one Web site in 1999, Hammocks.com.
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Because they sell different products, Thralow Inc. and NetShops are a good fit, Nielsen said. "These guys really know the business," he said.
"We've been dating each other for three years," Thralow said Thursday evening. "I think that Thralow Inc. was a great company. Everything I can say about Thralow Inc., I can say about NetShops -- and more."
Thralow has big hopes for the future. "The goal is to be the largest Internet retailer in the world and we weren't going to do it as Thralow Inc.," he said.
Thralow Inc. grew so quickly that it already needs more space than it has at the building it is constructing in a JobZ tax-free zone on Westgate Boulevard. The company has begun putting products in its new, unfinished building and holiday merchandise will be shipped from there, Jonathan Thralow, director of marketing and technology, said last week. However, construction won't be complete until early 2007, he said. NetShops' Minnesota operations will continue to operate out of 200 Sixth St. in Proctor.
This year, Thralow Inc. was named by Inc. magazine as the 203rd fastest-growing company in America. Two years ago, it received a Minnesota Technology Innovation Award.
Thralow started business as a retailer of sunglasses, known as Peepers, in Duluth's Holiday Center. He then took his merchandise to the Internet and later sold Peepers.com to a now-defunct company in New York called Eyecity.com. Thralow Inc. was formed after Thralow bought back Peepers.com and other sites he originally owned.
Discussions about the sale began in earnest last summer and were aimed at being complete before the holiday season, the retailers' busiest time of year, Nielsen said.
The all-important "cyber-Monday," one of the biggest e-tailing days of the year, is Nov. 27, and it was critical to have the deal complete before then, Nielsen said. Holiday sales are huge and critical to online outlets such as NetShops' sites. Last year, shoppers spent $27.1 billion in at Web retailers in the final three months of the year.
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Change and growth will come, but it will be done carefully, and the companies, which are profitable, will learn from each other, Thralow said. When you've got something that's this unique and valuable, you want to be careful how you change things," he said.
