Consumer Reports.Com: No Ads. No Links. Just Loyalty

Some unusual mail has been landing on Rhoda H. Karpatkin's desk. "We've been getting a lot of offers to be acquired recently," says the president of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine. Karpatkin won't say who is sending these overtures to her office in leafy Yonkers, N.Y. But they are peculiar: Consumers Union is not-for-profit, so who would want to buy it?

It's not hard to see why suitors might try. Not only does Consumer Reports sell a hefty 4.4 million copies each month, it also has a dot.com business that any publisher would envy. Since its launch two years ago, consumerreports.com has attracted more than 330,000 subscribers who pay either $24 a year or $3.95 per month, and it's adding 7,000 new subscribers per week. What's more, 90% of them don't already take the print product. This bible of consumerism is one of the few print publications, along with The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, that has built a workable subscriber model online (table, page 186). Already offering extensive archives, free information, and chat rooms, the site will soon expand to include Web-only content such as surveys of online shopping sites.