Web Retailers Band Together to Build Traffic and Sales

ShopSite Marketplace(tm) Shatters Web Mall Stereotypes

PROVO, UT -- February 24, 1997 (INB)

Online retailers: Need to build traffic and sales on a tight budget? Join a mall. Sounds good, but most malls are little more than dumping grounds for poorly designed web sites. So now what?

http://www.shopsite.com

ShopSite Marketplace shatters the stereotypes of online malls, and helps businesses to develop and maintain simple, professional, easy-to-use web sites. With more than 175,000 visitors per month, the Marketplace showcases over 150 stores created with ICentral(tm)'s ShopSite Manager software. Many retailers make over $5000 per month in sales exclusively from their ShopSite presence.

"ShopSite Marketplace is not a typical online mall," said Dave Adams of ICentral. "A Web mall is really just a list of links to stores on the Internet. Our web site exclusively spotlights businesses who use the ShopSite Manager software, which makes it easy for both the retailer and the customer to enjoy a good shopping experience." ShopSite Manager can be hosted on any BSDI- or Linux-based server running NCSA-compatible server software.

"We have more than 6000 visitors per day," said ICentral CEO Greg Gibson. "One of the reasons we have so much traffic is the software. The stores in our mall are all very user-friendly and operate in essentially the same way. We also have a 'specials' section that spotlights sales and a 'free stuff' page--it's those kinds of things that make ShopSite Marketplace a standout with customers and merchants."

Gibson says another benefit to mall merchants is the ShopSite Merchants Cooperative Advertising venture. "We buy a block of advertising on a major search engine. Since we purchase such a large quantity, we get a very good price, usually about 10CPM. We then turn around and sell that to our merchants for a very inexpensive price. It allows our merchants to advertise on the Web, something a lot of the smaller businesses would not be able to do."

ShopSite Manager

The ShopSite Manager software is designed to assist small-to-medium Internet merchandisers in all aspects of e-commerce -- from setting up shop to taking orders with no HTML experience necessary. Retailers who know nothing more than how to surf the Web can create professional-looking web sites with Shop Site Manager software, saving them thousands of dollars.

Aardvark Cycles (http://www.shopsite.com/aardvark) is a good example of the software's powerful applications. "We sell mountain bikes and accessories on the Web, and we have stiff competition from big cycling catalogs," said co-owner Kevin Innes. "But with the help of ShopSite Manager, we have a web site that a lot of people say looks better than those big companies'. And for a lot less money than they spent on theirs, our web site makes us look like one of those big catalog companies in the eyes of our customers. It levels the playing field."

Once the site is up and running, ShopSite Manager helps the retailer take care of day-to-day business. Customers will like the 'shopping basket' approach, which makes it easy for them to view their purchases, and secured pages for credit card purchases. Merchandisers will appreciate features such as 24-hour web site editing, easy data entry screens, email notification of orders, unlimited online order tracking, and on-the-fly shipping and tax calculations.

ShopSite Marketplace Merchants

Richard Aluise (clearcreat@aol.com) of Highlands Ranch, Colorado is an example of a satisfied ShopSite Marketplace merchant. His company Cyber-Med (http://www.beehealthy.com) sells vitamins, herbs, sports nutrition items and diet products. "It was very easy to set the site up," said Aluise. "I've only been with ShopSite Marketplace for a short time, but I'm already making sales online. The possibilities for the future are really exciting."

Layne Sisk (ltsisk@aol.com) of Orem, Utah has had a similar experience. His company L&K Holding Corporation (http://www.l-and-k.com) has been on ShopSite Marketplace for a year. L&K sells a variety of products online; the site has three separate sections: hobbies, computers and liquidation. "The number one thing for us is that the software is extremely easy to use," said Sisk. "ShopSite Manager makes it very simple for merchants with little or no HTML experience to set up a professional online presence. We're really happy."