Brookstone Selects Mercent for Data-Driven Online Marketing, Generates 20% Holiday Revenue Growth Through the Mercent Shopping Network

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - March 5, 2009) - Mercent™, a provider of online marketing software and services for retail merchants, today announced that leading specialty retailer Brookstone™, ranked #131 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, 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 marketplaces and comparison shopping engines. During Brookstone's holiday season 2008, Mercent generated a 20% year-over-year lift in managed revenues.

"The Mercent team has created a high-performance online marketing solution built on a deep understanding of ecommerce best-practices," said Steve August, Operational Vice-President of Customer Marketing. "The tools and insight provided by the Mercent Retail platform have enhanced Brookstone's performance across several online shopping channels and delivered material performance improvements."

Brookstone is a multi-channel retailer with more than 300 stores across the United States. The company's functional yet unique product categories include health and fitness, home and office, outdoor living, and travel and auto. In 2007, Brookstone reported $562.8 million in total sales revenue, and grew web sales to $89 million, representing a 31% increase in online sales revenue over 2006.

"Mercent welcomes Brookstone to our growing portfolio of successful leading retail brands," said Mercent CEO Eric Best. "We're excited with the preliminary results we delivered in 2008, and look forward to Brookstone's online success in 2009 and beyond."

Mercent helps leading retailers drive revenues and profits through more than 50 ecommerce channels including comparison shopping engines, transactional marketplaces, paid inclusion programs, and affiliate networks. Through the on-demand marketing platform Mercent Retail, retailers can manage key aspects of their online merchandising, including automatically optimizing for profitability, inventory, and other business goals with substantially less time and effort.

Information regarding Mercent Retail shopping feed and paid inclusion management technology, Mercent Performance marketing services, and the complete list of online marketing channels in the Mercent Shopping Network is available at www.mercent.com.

About Brookstone

Brookstone, Inc. is an innovative product development and specialty lifestyle retail company that operates 318 Brookstone Brand stores nationwide and in Puerto Rico. Typically located in high-traffic regional shopping malls and airports, the stores feature unique and innovative consumer products. The Company also operates a Direct Marketing business that includes an ecommerce website at http://www.brookstone.com.

About Mercent

Mercent provides online marketing technology and services to help retail merchants optimize performance across online marketing channels. Mercent's on-demand platform, Mercent Retail, connects existing retail management systems and The Mercent Shopping Network, a network of more than 50 online shopping destinations including transactional marketplaces such as Amazon.com and eBay Large Merchant Services, comparison shopping engines (CSEs) such as Shopping.com and Shopzilla, paid inclusion programs like Yahoo! Search Submit Pro, and affiliate marketing programs such as LinkShare and the Google Affiliate Network. Mercent Retail makes it easy for merchants to increase revenue and gross margins by promoting the right products with the right merchandising offers and placement using optimized product data feeds to these key retail channels.

Mercent customers include 1-800-Flowers, Bass Pro Shops, Brookstone, GUESS?, L'Occitane USA, Redcats Group, REI, and other leading retailers. Mercent is an Amazon.com Certified System Integrator, Buy.com Gold Certified Partner, SHOP.COM Certified Data Feed Provider, certified Google Product Search Partner and Yahoo! Search Submit Pro certified feed provider. Founded by veterans of Amazon.com, Mercent is a venture-funded company based in Seattle, WA. For more information, visit www.mercent.com.

Contact Information: Contact: Todd Sherman Communications Mercent 206-832-3900