BuyItOnline Revolutionizes Internet Retailing for Small Business Merchants
ALLSTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 8, 1998--
- Virtual Storefronts For Small Businesses -
Without The High-Tech Budgets
Or Infrastructures Of The FORTUNE 500 -
- Exclusive Agreement With SuperCoups Sends "Virtual Coupons"
To 50 Million Homes Annually; An Unprecedented Online
Marketing Opportunity For Regional Merchandizing -
In a bold move destined to shake up the online shopping scene, Stumpworld Systems, Inc. today announced its unique Electronic Commerce initiative, commencing with the acquisition of BuyItOnline(R), an aggregator of over 35,000 business links on the Web. By mid October, a new BuyItOnline site will emerge changing from a simple link directory into the Internet industry's first, truly end-to-end virtual shopping center at www.buyitonline.com. Merchants using Stumpworld's uniquely user-friendly Online Merchant(tm) software - now available for $99 at selected computer retailers - will receive the same commerce functionality of large, high-profile e-commerce sites without the hassle or expense of developing, maintaining and marketing their online merchandizing presence.
Ri Regina, Stumpworld's new vice president of electronic commerce and former owner of BuyItOnline said, "We had been looking for the right partner to take BuyItOnline to the next level on the Web. We saw the perfect match with Stumpworld - their creativity would give BuyItOnline shoppers a dynamic shopping experience in an innovative site design; and their contacts would give our merchants access to a powerful suite of resources that aren't typically available to the community of smaller retailers."
"Online Merchant has revolutionized Internet retailing, freeing small business owners from the time consuming technology hassles of maintaining an online presence - inventory updates, price changes, even complete store graphics can be modified with just three mouse clicks," said Michael Clebnik, vice president and chief operating officer at Stumpworld.
BUYITONLINE Provides The Most Comprehensive Merchant Offerings:
BuyItOnline is a complete shopping site for Internet commerce and includes all of the software and services necessary to provide a transaction-based shopping platform. BuyItOnline addresses all of the merchandizing community's fundamental issues surrounding e-commerce, providing packaged, end-to-end services for merchants including hosting, security, transaction functionality, shipping, marketing and promotions, and catalog-style call-center customer support.
With BuyItOnline, merchants finally have a complete Internet commerce solution that answers the five key challenges to successful online retailing: What is the cost? Where will I rent space? How will I drive consumers to the store? How will I take and fulfill orders securely? And how will I handle customer service?
A Company spokesperson said that all the other competitive Internet shopping sites are missing at least one of the five key components for effective e-commerce. BuyItOnline offers everything a merchant needs to sell products online at a price that any size merchant can afford.
1. What is the cost?
$99.00 for Online Merchant, the software tool that allows a small business owner to quickly and easily set up and maintain a secure Web storefront - without any knowledge of the Internet or HTML. The cost to go e-commerce with BuyItOnline is either a 10% or a 15% fee on confirmed sales through the merchant's BuyItOnline store. The fee depends on the hosting service choice, below.
2. Where will I rent space?
BuyItOnline offers hosting services with secure server ordering to its merchants. BuyItOnline is destined to become one of the most frequented commerce-centric sites on the Internet because of the strategic partnerships that BuyItOnline has forged designed to drive traffic. Merchants have the option of two pricing plans $ 79.00 per month (plus a 15% fee on confirmed sales) or $ 299.00 per month (plus a 10% fee on confirmed sales).
3. How will I drive consumers to the store?
BuyItOnline will receive national coupon insertions for two years into all SuperCoups envelopes, a national coupon franchise business that sells coupon marketing programs to retailers that are mailed to millions of local area homes. Coupon mailings in the SuperCoups program will be offered to the BuyItOnline merchant database, significantly expanding the limited local reach of the retailers.
"Driving customers to the site is the top priority for online malls and where BuyItOnline most decidedly differs from competitors. Via its exclusive agreement with SuperCoups, the 50 million households that receive these coupons will benefit from even greater discounts if they purchase online," said Gene Ahlers, director of Web marketing and sales for SuperCoups.
The SuperCoups franchisee sales force will be offering a complete Internet store creation service package to their customers, which includes creating an online store using Stumpworld's Online Merchant software; hosting the store in the BuyItOnline shopping centre; and, a variety of value-added services, including redeemable coupon banner advertisements.
4. How will I take and fulfill orders securely?
BuyItOnline will be the clearinghouse for all orders through its transaction-processing partner, Internet Commerce Services Corporation (ICOMS) using Open Market's Transact(tm) software. As such, a customer will be able to shop in any or all of the stores, aggregate one shopping cart of items from any of the stores, and order their products using one secure order form. The BuyItOnline service will include authorizing the customer's credit card at the time of purchase, notifying the merchants of their orders, coordinating confirmation of shipment and concluding the credit card transaction.
5. How will I handle customer service?
In partnership with Renaissance Software, BuyItOnline will provide a 24x7 toll-free call center to merchants and consumers for account management, shipping and order tracking, dispute resolution, returns management and financial disbursements. For the first time, smaller merchants will have access to a complete, end-to-end software system - which typically costs up to $500,000 - included with the monthly fee.
"Other e-commerce solutions only offer merchants a host site and/or the software to develop the initial storefront they completely ignore the issues of site maintenance, order fulfillment, customer service and marketing. The upgraded BuyItOnline addresses all of these issues for the store owner so every business of any size can take advantage of the world-wide merchandizing benefits of the Web," said Scott Matalon, president of Stumpworld.
BuyItOnline Is The First Virtual Shopping Centre To Service The Customer:
BuyItOnline will provide consumers with a destination point for shopping that includes secure transaction capabilities, guaranteed shipping services and product tracking, mall-wide policies and customer service, frequent-buyer value-added shopping services, online coupon redemption and information/entertainment content relevant to the shopping experience.
"Although BuyItOnline today has over 37,000 merchants registered, only those that meet our stringent criteria for product quality, business processes and customer responsiveness will be extended membership. BuyItOnline has an advanced search capability to guide the shopper directly to the stores selling the merchandise in which they are most interested. Shoppers can meet all of their needs within one site, knowing that the stores have passed a certification process and they won't be charged for merchandise that does not exist or is not on its way to their homes," said Matalon.
In addition, BuyItOnline is utilizing an aggressive advertising strategy of selling "Banner Coupons" that function as redeemable coupons in the shopping centre and placing the advertisements in cooperative advertising buys on external Web sites. When a user clicks on a banner ad carrying the "Click here to BuyItOnline" logo, the coupon is automatically loaded into the user's electronic shopping cart and the user is brought directly to the store or product being advertised. One more click and the user is at the BuyItOnline order page, which will display the item selected, the coupon and its discount.
"BuyItOnline is taking a unique approach to Web enabling merchants and is paying close attention to the evolving needs of electronic customers. BuyItOnline demands that every store within the center meet certain standards. In addition, BuyItOnline acts as the main point of contact for transactions, shipping, consumer and merchant questions," says Mark Peabody, research analyst with Aberdeen Group.
About Stumpworld:
Stumpworld is a technology company specializing in re-engineering clients' businesses into the online medium. The Company has an impressive client list which includes Media One, Aerosmith, NYNEX, The Woolworth Corporation, Sony Music, The Rolling Stones, Stone & Webster and more.
Online Merchant is a trademark of Alpha Software Corporation. BuyItOnline is a registered trademark of Stumpworld Systems, Inc. All other product and company names are the properties of their respective holders.
CONTACT: Stumpworld Systems, Inc. Sterling Hager, Inc. Michael Clebnik Kristin Kane 617-787-6900 x224 617-926-6665 x248 michael@stumpworld.com kristin@sterlinghager.com
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