PRESS RELEASES

Ross-Simons Deploys Mercado to Help Shoppers Discover that Gem of a Product

Leading jewelry and gift retailer sees great results following adoption of new site search and merchandising features and best practices.

PLEASANTON, CA, March 26, 2008 - Mercado, a leading eCommerce solution provider, today announced that Ross-Simons, a long-established and well respected jewelry and luxury gift retailer, has reported significant shopper experience and operational improvements as a result of deploying Mercado search, navigation and merchandising on its eCommerce site (www.ross-simons.com).

A true pioneer of eCommerce, Ross-Simons was one of the first transactional sites on the Web dedicated to selling jewelry and other luxury goods. Since the initial launch in 1997, the site's popularity and sales have exploded. Ross-Simons.com is currently number 139 on the Internet Retailer Top 500 list, generating $60 million in revenue (2007) – a number that is expected to grow to $70 million this year.

Early in 2007 Ross-Simons realized that their site search and navigation was not meeting the high expectations of their shoppers, and was difficult for Ross-Simons staffers to manage. "We (IT) would meet regularly with Marketing to figure out what changes were needed on the site to meet their goals," according to Terry Matthies, Vice President of Information Technology at Ross-Simons. "We would then have to spend four, eight... sometimes twelve weeks developing custom code for our homegrown search engine to satisfy their requirements."

Ross-Simons evaluated several vendors including Mercado, Endeca and FAST. "Mercado became the obvious choice early in the evaluation process," according to Matthies. "We loved their Commerce Merchandising Console – it was significantly easier to use than those of the other vendors we looked at. It was also apparent that the Mercado solution would better integrate with our existing applications."

The Mercado solution went live on RossSimons.com in September 2007 – just prior to the beginning of the busy holiday shopping season. Ross-Simons observed immediate improvements in search performance and were able to give marketing and merchandising personnel the autonomy they needed to effectively execute their holiday campaigns.

"Speed of search and navigation was wonderful during the Holiday shopping rush," commented Matthies. "In addition, our marketing staff and merchandisers can now easily create business rules to populate the site with banners for special promotions, particular brands or clearance items. They can also assign attributes to products as they see fit – making products easier to find, and enabling more effective merchandising."

"Ross-Simons is taking great advantage of our merchandising features and services; as a result, they've been able to bring their online merchandising to a level not previously possible," said Corey Leibow, CEO and President of Mercado. "They are a fantastic example of a retailer that is replicating a high-quality brick-and-mortar experience online – delivering on its brand promise and tradition of excellence."

About Mercado

Mercado is a leading eCommerce solution provider, offering site search & navigation, merchandising and storefront solutions to more than 200 multi-channel, pure-play & SMB Internet retail and B2B eCommerce brands in the United States, Canada and Europe. Mercado enables a rich shopping experience and equips eCommerce professionals with a powerful platform on which to execute merchandising strategies and ignite revenue growth. As a result of deploying Mercado's software and on-demand solutions, online retailers commonly realize immediate and significant increases in both conversion rate and average order value (AOV). Macy's, Overstock.com, Ted Baker, Williams-Sonoma Inc., Sears Holdings Corp., Charles Tyrwhitt, OfficeMax, GUESS?, Inc., REI, and B&H Photo-Video are some of the online businesses who have partnered with Mercado.

About Ross-Simons

Established in 1952, Ross-Simons has always been committed to one goal – providing customers with the very best in affordable jewelry & luxury gifts. In addition to their online store, they have numerous brick & mortar stores throughout the country, all of them inspired by and dedicated to this mission.

Contacts

Mark Shapiro
Mercado PR Department
(858) 578-7861
press@mercado.com