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Thursday May 13, 6:01 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Hollywood Productions, Inc.
At a Special Meeting of Shareholders Held May 10, 1999, Hollywood Productions, Inc., By a Majority Vote, Changed Its Name to SHOPNET.COM, INC. to Reflect a New Direction
New Website Showcases WWW.USA-SHOPNET.COM Sweeping Changes in Company's Direction and Company's Six eCommerce Websites
NEW YORK, May 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Hollywood Productions, Inc. (Nasdaq: FILM - news, FILMW - news) announced today that at a special shareholders meeting, held on May 10, 1999, shareholders approved the adoption of and the Company effected a change in its corporate name -- to SHOPNET.COM, INC. (Nasdaq: SPNT - news, SPNTW - news) -- to reflect the new direction the Company has undertaken during the last year. The Company has also incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary, Hollywood Productions, Inc. (''HPI''), to which shall be assigned the Company's current movie production business. The Company's new symbol, ''SPNT,'' was previously utilized by an OTC corporation (SportsNuts.com International, Inc.) which is unaffiliated with the Company. Trading of the Company's securities under the ''SPNT'' and ''SPNTW'' symbols is expected to commence today.
Over the past year, management has re-structured and re-focused its efforts into enhancing its core businesses and additionally expanding into new enterprises relying greatly on the ever increasing consumer commerce on the internet. This change is reflected in an increase in the Company's Internet activities. The Company has broadened its operations through vertical expansion and the diversification of its core businesses.
To showcase the sweeping changes reflected in the name change, the Company has opened a new corporate website, www.usa-shopnet.com. The interactive site highlights the Company's activities and its six eCommerce sites: www.breakingwaves.com, www.smallwavesswimwear.com, www.videonostalgia.com, www.videooncall.com, and its affiliate company's www.toyswhypayretail.com and www.playco.com.
SHOPNET.COM, INC. is a holding company whose subsidiaries produce movies, sell videos, and/or manufacture and sell children's swimwear. An affiliate of SHOPNET.COM, INC. sells toys at retail. Subsidiary HPI, the film company, makes high quality, low budget, independent movies. It finances, co-finances, produces, or co-produces movies in the one to three million dollar range and also oversees the marketing and distribution of these pictures.
Two of HPI's most notable pictures completed during the last two years are ''Dirty Laundry'' and ''Machiavelli Rises.'' The film company, through two separate websites will market and sell home videos, DVDs, and film memorabilia. HPI's website, www.videonostalgia.com, through an affiliation with one of America's leading merchandisers of classic feature films, will market full length motion pictures and short subjects on video cassette and DVD at discount prices. Initially, the site will offer some 1200 titles in all genres of motion pictures from musicals to action and horror films, eventually growing to over 5000 titles. The films will include some of the greatest films ever made with sterling stars of the silver screen of days gone by including John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Spencer Tracy, Sidney Longstreet, and hundreds more. www.videonostalgia.com will be the first website of its kind uniquely devoted to vintage motion pictures, and as new distributors are signed on, SHOPNET.COM, INC. envisions thousands of titles of films being added, spanning the hundred or so years of film making history.
The second site, www.videosoncall.com, will be a new type of video website which will sell more contemporary titles on video cassette, specializing in collector, out of print, genre, and more foreign titles together with selected film memorabilia. Most importantly will be the foreign language films which are very difficult to find in the United States. This website will become the singular source for persons of different languages seeking film entertainment in its original form. In addition to the foreign language films, the site will specialize in collector films including short subjects, commercials, 'first film appearances' by now well known actors and actresses, and some rare newsreel and documentary footage.
Both of these eCommerce sites will be run by HPI; however, in almost all cases, the films will only be sold on the sites with source distributors handling inventory, fulfillment, duplication costs, royalties, import, and tariff charges, where applicable.
SHOPNET.COM, INC.'s subsidiary Breaking Waves Inc. (''Breaking Waves'') manufactures and distributes children's swimwear. Breaking Waves sells in excess of 200 different styles of swimwear for children in their toddler through pre-teen years. Breaking Waves sells directly to retailers through its showroom in New York and through its field sales force. Some of its major clients are Marshalls, Dillards, Sears, Wal-Mart, and Target.
Recently, Breaking Waves set up a business to business (B2B) website, www.breakingwaves.com to service its wholesale -- direct to retailer business relations. The site will be used to increase Breaking Waves' market share of retail stores throughout the United States and will be popularized through direct advertising and banner swapping provided for by Smart Age Corp, a specialty marketer of internet advertising, and through Buylink, Inc., a company specializing in putting B2B and retailers in contact with one another. Breaking Waves will also use this site to assist its field sales force in making contacts and making sales.
In addition to this B2B site, Breaking Waves has opened a discount retail eCommerce website, www.smallwavesswimwear.com. The site will feature discounted styles, close-outs, over-runs, and manufacturers' specials, all at highly discounted prices (up to 65% off retail) sold directly to the consumer by the manufacturer. Incentives like free merchandise gifts and free shipping will also be offered. All of the sites are hosted through MindSpring, Inc. with Mercantec Soft Cart Software and CyberCash, Inc. card services for secure on line transactions.
SHOPNET.COM, INC.'s affiliate company, Play Co. Toys and Entertainment, Corp. (OTC Bulletin Board: PLCO - news), is a retail toy store chain which operates 25 retail outlets in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Texas, Illinois, and California and has plans to open at least eight additional stores in 1999. New stores expected to open within the next two months are located in the new billion dollar Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas and at Pier 39 in San Francisco. Play Co. specializes in offering a distinctive blend of educational, specialty, collectible, and traditional toys. The retail stores are uniquely set up with segregated areas within each store where children, together with parents, can try out new toys, reading areas to review books, videotape viewing areas to view the latest in entertainment, and in one store a treehouse to encourage kids to explore the unknown. These stores create an environment conducive to family interaction where families make an investment in time which has paid off in increased revenues and profits to Play Co.
To capitalize on the ever increasing business being performed over the web, Play Co. has opened one new eCommerce site and has reconfigured its original site. The new website www.toyswhypayretail.com is a toy retail site with name brand toys, special purchases, close-outs, and overstock selling direct to the consumer at manufacturers' wholesale prices. This site was designed from the ground up and represents a new tradename for Play Co. The unique site focuses on offering customers popular brands such as Barbie dolls, Little Tikes, Power Rangers, Hot Wheels, Playskool preschool, and many other name brand products. For a limited time, customers are also enticed by a ''10% off all orders'' offer, prominently displayed on the front page of the site. Also, in order to increase interest in the site, shipping charges will be waived on all domestic orders over $50. As an additional incentive, a free gift with a retail value of up to $10.00 is given with every purchase. The combination of these three additional strong offers along with the wholesale pricing is designed to capture customers and to convert them into repeat customers. This site is expected to grow to over one thousand items within the next twelve months.
With advertising in 'high traffic' internet service providers (ISPs) such as the largest, America Online, Play Co. seeks to capture bargain shopping web-surfers looking for better prices than are offered to customers at retail outlets or at websites such as eToys.
www.playco.com is Play Co.'s specialty site selling the finest in imported and collectible toys for young and old. This is a high-end, difficult-to-find-anywhere-else site which will attract, among others, the truehearted collector and aficionado with such merchandise as die-cast cars, dolls, plush toys, trains, and collectible action figures. These products will be presented in an upscale manner. This type of product is usually associated with smaller specialty retailers, which can be hard to find in many geographical areas. Offering such products on the internet will make them available to customers who cannot find them in their local community. The collectible and import specialty product lines such as LGB, Steiff, Steinbach, and others generally tend to be very profitable due to higher gross margins than other lines. This site is expected to grow to a size of up to five thousand items.
Finally, Play Co. is about to enter the world of virtual reality, advancing and expanding beyond the ever shrinking sales and storage space provided by retail outlets by providing electronic kiosks where thousands of children's books, videos, and collectibles, many more than can be profitably stocked in a standard retail environment, can be ordered and delivered to customers expeditiously. Play Co. will share revenues for this expanded selling area with special distributors who will handle fulfillment by shipping the selected product direct to the consumer. Two advantages of such a system is that Play Co. can offer thousands of items of merchandise without maintaining or purchasing inventory. The only costs incurred are those modest costs attributed to the hardware and software needed to operate the kiosks. The other great advantage is that Play Co. believes that this approach will enable it to take advantage of the 4 million plus potential customers that visit its stores annually. The total number of potential customers will increase as Play Co. adds stores and continues to grow. This is expected to reach 7 to 8 million by the end of the year 2000.
For additional information, please contact: Robert E. DiMilia, Secretary of SHOPNET.COM, INC., 212-688-9223.
SOURCE: Hollywood Productions, Inc.
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