Shop.com selects Altura International’s One-Cart Solution
Agreement creates new sales channel for Catalog Industry
MONTEREY, CA, December 10, 2002 — Altura International, the developer of e-commerce shopping solutions, and Shop.com, “the official shopping site of the Internet,” today announced the launch of a strategic alliance which will provide a multi-merchant, single shopping cart experience to Shop.com’s customers. The result is a means for the catalog industry to sell on Shop.com using the Altura Merchant Operating System (“AMOS”) “One-Cart” solution.
“Like we have done with creditcards.com, and diamond.com, we intend to provide the consumer with the most compelling platform on which to do all their shopping. The brand name shop.com is instantly recognizable, when advertised or marketed with complete recall that is heard once and remembered forever. This establishes the company as the most credible player in the space by the nature of the name alone, and, provides a direct sales platform that is Internationally scaleable,” said Andrew Miller, Managing Partner of Shop.com Acquisition Corp., LLC.
According to the Direct Marketing Association, the catalog industry generated around $120 billion in merchandise sales in 2001, and is comprised of around 17,000 individual companies. In 1997, Altura began using its One-Cart solution to help catalogers win on the Web and has subsequently aggregated over 500 catalogs and thousands of brands, creating a de facto catalog alliance that offers consumers easy access to all of their products in a single location with one log-in, one password, one navigational experience, one set of security preferences, one address book and one checkout…One-Cart.
“Altura has managed to survive the dot-com meltdown by remaining focused on our vision that consumers wanted authoritative selection in a single location, and that a virtual-inventory model was the most economically sensible way to provide it to them,” said Lee Lorenzen, Altura’s Founder and CEO. “Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) recent launch of its one-cart, multi-merchant, virtual-inventory initiative validates that vision, and its clear to us that the ultimate winners in e-commerce will be those companies who deliver the most compelling one-cart shopping experience. We’ve long admired Amazon’s focus on the consumer, but we’ve also believed that eBay’s (NASDAQ: EBAY) virtual inventory model was more practical. So, Altura has combined what we viewed to be the most compelling aspects of these two e-commerce giants – a great consumer experience and a virtual inventory business model – and are delighted that we can now further broaden the reach of One-Cart by sharing it with the Shop.com consumers.”
Shop.com joins Altura’s house brand, CatalogCity.com, and dozens of other One-Cart, virtual-inventory sites that are powered by Altura and which make up the Altura Network.
About Altura International
Founded in September 1997, and partially funded by Bill Gates, Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), InfoSpace (NASDAQ: INSP), and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Altura International builds and manages custom e-commerce shopping solutions for the largest Web portals, Fortune 500 companies, and major merchants in the mail order and online catalog businesses. Altura has deployed over 50 shopping sites for leading companies such as Yahoo! and MasterCard, among others. Through CatalogCity.com, Altura’s flagship shopping portal, consumers are provided easy access to the world`s best products and merchants. Building on the strengths of its Altura Merchant Operating System (AMOS) technology and its customer acquisition agreements with hundreds of top name brand merchants, Altura has established itself as the leading developer of e-commerce shopping solutions. Additionally, as the only multi-vendor, multi-lingual and multi-currency e-commerce shopping engine, AMOS fully supports global shopping access as well. Altura-powered malls are located at the most heavily trafficked Internet intersections and are designed to deliver the most satisfying remote shopping experiences for customers around the world. Altura International is a privately held company and is headquartered in Monterey, CA. More information can be found by visiting the company’s Web sites at www.altura.com and www.catalogcity.com.
About Shop.com
Owned and operated by Deal Jam LLC and partners, shop.com is a direct sales and marketing platform, providing consumers worldwide with easy access to the world`s best products and prices.
About Deal Jam, LLC
Deal Jam, LLC provides direct sales, direct marketing and product distribution to its affiliates and clients. Deal Jam sells by leveraging its long-standing relationships with Fortune 1000 and emerging growth companies, employing an aggressive and professional approach to sales and marketing. Deal Jam uses outbound telemarketing and email in its process, and continually develops strong partnerships, strategic alliances and client relationships.
Deal Jam applies the use of traditional and new media including direct mail, email, and Internet marketing, as well as television programming through its business division Deal Jam Direct, a leader in direct response television since 1995. Deal Jam has proven success using the Internet as a sales platform. Deal Jam co-founded, operated, and successfully sold Diamond.com, LLC, and currently operates Creditcards.com, LLC, Shop.com, and Love Tactics, LLC. Deal Jam, LLC is a privately held company and is headquartered in Boston, MA. More information can be found by visiting the company’s Web sites at www.dealjam.com, www.creditcards.com, www.shop.com and www.lovetactics.com.
For additional information, please contact:
Altura International
Bruce Sellers, Executive Vice President
1 Lower Ragsdale Drive, Building 1, Suite 210
Monterey, CA 93908
841/647-4707
bruces@altura.com
Deal Jam, LLC
Andrew Miller, President
123 Newbury Street-2nd Floor
Boston, MA 02116
617-236-0806 office
amiller@dealjam.com email
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