e-Commerce Merchandising Tool-Kit--Direct Marketing, Mail Order, E-commerce News

Direct Marketing, Mail Order, and E-commerce News from the National Mail Order Association

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New e-Commerce Merchandising Tool-Kit

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Mercado Software, a leader in e-commerce search and
merchandising solutions, announced today the latest version of its software,
CSN v3.0. Garnering the power of Mercado's high quality search technology,
CSN v3.0 provides a comprehensive tool-kit for merchandising, allowing
business managers the highest level of control of their web site.

CSN v3.0 enables business managers to easily control and merchandise every
aspect of their web site and execute their target marketing objectives. In a matter
of minutes, merchandising managers can specify and run A/B testing on their site,
define personalized promotions, personalize the buyer's experience or build
complete canned web pages -- all done with minimal to no dependency on their
IT group.

According to Forrester Research, "Retailers will spend their time in 2005 investing
in selling innovations that bring them closer to new and existing customers and
serve as points of differentiation. These include investment in target marketing
through social networks, broadband selling tools, rigorous A/B merchandising
testing, and international expansion." (Trends 2005: Online Retail, November 2004)

CSN v3.0 includes an out-of-the-box merchandising engine that drives all the
merchandising objects on the e-commerce web page such as best sellers, related
products, promotional banners, recommended products and collateral. Through the
intuitive and easy-to-use Commerce Management Console (CMC), business
managers can quickly add merchandising rules that promote desired products,
brands or categories on all of these merchandising objects.

A/B testing of page design, content and promotion is an essential tool for effective
data-driven merchandising. With CSN v3.0, a business manager may run an A/B
test that will present alternate banners, as well as various page layouts with different
products to different test groups. All he/she needs to do is select those specific
elements through the Commerce Management Console. CSN will run the test
automatically and assign site visitors to the different test groups. CSN will manage
the buyer's experience for each of the test groups, which will ensure consistent
experience to each of the site visitors and will provide a report at the end of the test.

The personalization logic in CSN v3.0 enables merchandisers to create business
rules targeted to different buyer segments and profiles. Via the CMC, business
users can define the preferences for each segment, and provide different
experiences to the site visitors once their profile is identified.

About Mercado Software

Mercado is a leading provider of e-commerce search, browse and merchandising solutions for B2B and B2C businesses. Through offering online customers a superior buying experience and equipping business managers with a powerful platform to implement merchandising strategies, online retailers and businesses can constantly grow their business results. Sears, Williams-Sonoma, JCPenney, Macy's, Target, Tower Records, Blockbuster, MSN, Caterpillar and OfficeMax, are some of the companies benefiting from Mercado's solutions. Mercado's unique technology, combined with its commitment to innovation and its experienced team, delivers bottom line results for its customers. Such benefits include increased revenues, higher productivity, reduced operational costs, and improved customer satisfaction. For more information about Mercado Software, please visit www.mercado.com or call (888) 376-1400.

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