PRESS RELEASES

Mercado Joins Bazaarvoice Radius to Help Marketers Execute Integrated Social Commerce Strategies

Integration of Mercado and Bazaarvoice extends the reach of user-generated content to increase customer engagement and drive more sales.

PLEASANTON, CA, May 5, 2008 - Mercado, a leading eCommerce solution provider, today announced that it has joined Bazaarvoice Radius (www.bazaarvoice.com/radius), a breakthrough program designed to accelerate the strategic adoption of social commerce by brand marketers, direct marketers, agencies, and technology vendors. Through Bazaarvoice Radius, Mercado now offers marketers an integrated social commerce tool that combines site search and merchandising with Bazaarvoice to deliver a shopping experience that brings shoppers closer to a purchase decision by adding relevant and compelling reviews and ratings to the criteria by which shoppers navigate and select items for purchase.

"Customer-to-customer conversations and user-generated content are top of mind for marketers – in fact 9 out of 10 marketers plan to add Web 2.0 capabilities this year," said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. "The integration between Bazaarvoice's social commerce platform and Mercado provides marketers with a powerful new way to extend the value of their user-generated content to engage more customers and ultimately drive more sales."

In today's online shopping world, when it comes to products there's more choice than ever – more choice than any one shopper can handle. To succeed in eCommerce, it's critical that online retailers understand their shoppers and know how to help shoppers move to a buying decision. Through the integration of Mercado and Bazaarvoice, online retailers can:

dynamically adjust the order of their search results based on the product review rating
display product ratings in search results, as well expose ratings through dynamic navigation and sorting options; this allows shoppers to quickly find and read reviews on products before making their buying decisions – shortening the path to purchase
differentiate themselves by offering a truly unique and engaging online shopping experience

"Social commerce is here to stay. Many online retailers are realizing the power of reviews and ratings to sell – the key to which is a tight integration with their product discovery and merchandising strategies," commented Corey Leibow, President & CEO of Mercado. "Ratings and reviews from Bazaarvoice provide powerful selection criteria and serve as effective levers when combined with traditional objective product characteristics like price and brand. The integration of Mercado and Bazaarvoice enables this synergy – providing a new dimension to merchandising while energizing the shopper, and empowering him or her to leverage user generated content to make an informed purchase."

As a participating member of Radius, Mercado has access to the ideas, technologies, and tools needed to integrate social components into their existing offerings. In turn, marketers considering user-generated content can use Radius to quickly understand how to leverage their existing investment in Mercado to maximize returns. Qualified partners gain immediate access to XML datafeeds, web services APIs, and implementation support from the Bazaarvoice team. The program also helps partners market their Bazaarvoice Radius integrations through the Bazaarvoice web site, webinars, and case studies.

"Mercado's participation in the Bazaarvoice Radius program makes tremendous sense because it allows our joint retail customers to easily make ratings and reviews part of their online merchandising strategy," added Leibow. "We look forward to some very exciting success stories going forward as more retailers take advantage of our joint solution."

For more information about Bazaarvoice Radius, visit www.bazaarvoice.com/radius.

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 Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice offers outsourced technology, services, analytics, and expertise to help companies enhance the online shopping experience with social commerce applications that drive sales. Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews and Ask & Answer™ deliver immediate success by minimizing implementation risk and maximizing the strategic impact of user-generated review content through complete customization, deep integration, community management, advanced analytics, search engine optimization, and syndication across the Web and to offline channels.

Bazaarvoice was named to the 2007 Red Herring Global 100 and 2006 Red Herring Top 100 lists and received the 2006 ClickZ Marketing Innovation of the Year award. Bazaarvoice currently serves over 200 eCommerce leaders including Bass Pro Shops, Dell, Macy's, Office Depot, Inc., Overstock.com, PETCO, QVC, Sears, and ZipRealty. The company has headquarters in Austin, TX and offices in London, UK. For more information, please visit the company's Web site at www.bazaarvoice.com, read the blog at www.bazaarblog.com, or email info@bazaarvoice.com.

Contacts

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