Need to get something cheap, but don't have an uncle in the business who can get it wholesale?
Not to worry. So long as you're talking large quantities, all you need is International Closeout Exchange Systems Inc., a New York City firm that wants to be your high-tech middleman. Started last fall, its membership consists of about 2,200 vendors and 15,000 buyers.
The company's online database matches buyers and sellers of closeouts - excess goods such as toys, clothes, and electronics sold for pennies on the dollar.
"We'll allow every little store and vendor to get connected," says the firm's co-founder and president Sam Mizrahi, an old-fashioned middleman himself. "And," he boasts, "we're going to put all those middlemen out of business." E-mail: ices@nyweb.com.
ELECTRIC WORD
Opening up the Closeout
