Contact Information: Mercent Contact: Michele Mehl 425-205-9444 Email Contact
Levenger Selects Mercent to Increase Online Sales
High-End Retailer Gains Greater Marketing Efficiencies and Complete Integration With Back-End Retail Systems
| Source: Mercent
SEATTLE, WA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- October 23, 2006 -- Mercent, a provider of online marketing
technology and services for retail merchants, today announced that
Levenger, a high-end retailer of reading, writing, work and travel
products, has selected Mercent's hosted software service. Levenger joins
the growing list of top retail brands that utilize Mercent's on-demand
platform, Mercent Retail, to maximize online sales, profits, and
merchandising control through leading online marketing channels.
"By enabling us to go from 11 separate data feeds to just one that works
across multiple channels, Mercent's best-of-breed solution has lowered our
overall product costs," said Lynnette Montgomery, VP of E-Commerce at
Levenger. "And only Mercent offers us a true pay-for-performance pricing
model. Paying on a percentage of revenue generated, rather than per channel
or per product SKU, makes good business sense for Levenger."
Levenger sees significant revenue increase and greater productivity
In looking for a new solution, Levenger hoped to accomplish more than just
streamlining its data feeds. The retailer was seeking increased sales,
lower management costs, and better ROI from their online advertising
budget. They also wanted better control and more flexibility with their
merchandising and promotions, as well as more relevant retail metrics upon
which to base decisions.
With Mercent, implementation was simple and Levenger now has a flexible
solution capable of offering targeted, channel-specific product assortments
and accurate measurement of particular campaign results. Instead of blindly
syndicating all products through every data feed, as their prior solution
had forced them to do, Levenger maximizes sales by promoting only those
products that meet retail performance criteria on each channel. With
convenient access to specific sales data presented by product SKU and
marketing channel, the retailer makes better online advertising decisions.
Adds Montgomery, "Mercent's Web-based interface and convenient reporting
dashboard empowers us to customize our offers down to the SKU level for
each shopping portal, based on actual performance data."
Mercent's platform has reduced manual efforts and maintenance costs for
Levenger's marketing department, and has decreased their reliance on the
company's IT department. And even with all the specific data Mercent Retail
tracks and manages, the solution doesn't require orders to flow through a
separate Mercent shopping cart or dictate the infrastructure the retailer
uses to collect and process orders.
Mercent's focus on full-price, in-season, brand-driven marketing rather
than auction or off-price selling was more appropriate to Levenger's needs
than some of the other solutions the company considered. Mercent Retail
offers Levenger deeper, broader channel support, providing a single point
of integration to the most important online channels.
"We look forward to helping Levenger expand their online business," said
Eric Best, CEO of Mercent. "Our aim is to provide the tools Levenger needs
to easily promote the right products and offers in the right online
channels, so they can increase their revenue and gross margins, while
extending their strong brand."
About Levenger
Levenger offers high-quality products for reading, writing and working with
ideas. Its catalog, Web site and retail stores feature a variety of
beautiful, useful designs in reading tools, writing instruments, leather
goods, briefcases, lighting and desk accessories. Headquartered in Delray
Beach, Florida, Levenger has retail stores in Delray Beach, Chicago,
Boston, and Tennessee. You can visit their Web site at www.levenger.com.
About Mercent
Founded by veterans of Amazon.com, Mercent provides online marketing
technology and services to help retail merchants optimize performance
across online channels. Mercent's on-demand platform, Mercent Retail,
increases revenue and gross margins by promoting the right products with
the right offers in the right online channels. Mercent Retail provides a
single point of integration between existing retail management systems and
21 leading online marketing channels including transactional marketplaces
such as Amazon.com and SHOP.COM, shopping portals such as Shopping.com and
Shopzilla, and affiliate marketing programs such as LinkShare -- making it
easy for merchants to automate, measure, and optimize online product
merchandising campaigns through these channels. Mercent customers include
GUESS?, Lucky Brand Jeans, SmartBargains, Wet Seal, Proflowers, Celebrate
Express, Crabtree & Evelyn, and other leading retailers. Mercent is an
Amazon.com Certified System Integrator and SHOP.COM Certified Data Feed
Provider. Mercent is a venture-funded company based in Seattle, WA. For
more information, visit www.mercent.com.