Escalate Retail Partners with PowerReviews for Seamless Integration, Cutting-Edge Social Commerce

San Diego, CA, Oct. 28, 2008 – Escalate Retail today announced its partnership with PowerReviews, the Internet’s most innovative and comprehensive provider of customer reviews and social merchandising solutions.

The partnership will enable fast, simple integration between Escalate’s Blue Martini e-Commerce Suite and PowerReviews’ solution for customer reviews. Escalate provides powerful and flexible merchandising, advanced search, embedded analytics, highly personalized content and ultimate scalability for retailers who seek to drive more revenue at a lower cost through the online channel. PowerReviews gives retailers the capability to harness the full potential of customer reviews, allowing them to create multi-dimensional tags based on the pros, cons, and best uses of a particular product.

Through the partnership with PowerReviews, Escalate customers will have the option to seamlessly implement innovative customer review technology on their websites to enjoy the many benefits of social commerce. Many online retailers use the review data collected to fuel targeted email marketing campaigns and add product review snippets to their category pages. Multichannel retailers can also add the review snippet next to products in their catalogs and create in-store displays.

“As PowerReviews continues to grow, we are excited to have a new partner that is a proven leader and innovator in retail and e-commerce, said John Grech, Senior Director, Sales & Business Development for PowerReviews. “We are confident the partnership will bring new value to Escalate customers using PowerReviews and those looking to explore our solutions as they enter the area of social commerce.”

“As we continue to enhance our e-Commerce solutions, Escalate’s partnership with PowerReviews adds the valuable dimension of dynamic customer reviews that are becoming all but necessary to stay competitive in today’s online marketplace,” said Mike Julson, CTO, Escalate Retail. “PowerReviews’ proven technology and innovative features make the company an ideal partner for Escalate and our Blue Martini e-Commerce solution.”

About PowerReviews
PowerReviews (www.powerreviews.com) provides customer reviews and social merchandising solutions to online retailers and their shoppers. The company’s technology platform for collecting, organizing, structuring, and moderating relevance-based reviews helps significantly boost merchants’ sales, driving the highest uplift in the industry. In addition to working with more than 300 online retailers, including Staples, Toys "R" Us, REI, Drugstore.com, Gardener`s Supply, Diapers.com, and Jockey, PowerReviews has also launched its own reviews and recommendation site, Buzzillions (www.buzzillions.com). The company is headquartered in San Francisco with an international office in London.

About Escalate Retail
Escalate Retail is the #1 provider of retail solutions that drive cross-channel excellence and personal, relevant shopping experiences. Escalate’s Cross-Channel Suite is a proven set of solutions that enable retailers to deliver the seamless Buy Anywhere Fulfill Anywhere Commerce capabilities that today’s consumers demand. More than 500 retailers run their businesses on Escalate software, including 11 of the largest 100 retailers worldwide, over 50 of the Internet Retailer top 500 e-commerce sites and 14 of STORES Magazine’s “Hot 100”. The company maintains headquarters in San Diego, CA with additional offices located across North America and Europe. For more information, visit www.escalate.com.

Media Contacts:
Laura Weinhofer
VP Marketing
800-854-2263
lweinhofer@escalate.com

Catherine Seeds
KetnerBarnes Inc. (for Escalate Retail)
512-794-8876
cseeds@ketnerbarnes.com

Cathie O’Callaghan
PowerReviews
415-315-9170
Cathie@powerreviews.com
Escalate Retail and the Escalate Retail logo are trademarks of Escalate, Inc.