Mercent Announces Key Customer Wins in Fastest Growing Online Shopping Categories

Online Retailing Solution Connects Merchants with Leading Internet Marketing Channels

Seattle, WA — February 9th, 2005 — Mercent, the single solution for online marketplace retailing, today announced seven new customers using the company’s flagship software product, Mercent Commerce System. These customers, leading brands in the fastest growing categories of online shopping, employ Mercent to promote and sell their products through the world’s leading online marketing channels.

New Mercent customers include SportStation.com, FurnitureFind.com, AutoAnything, Audio Advisor, Liz Earle Cosmetics, Gristedes, and Color Me Beautiful.

Matt Bowen, Chief Operations Officer for SportStation.com, noted that “by utilizing Mercent Commerce System to sell our products through Amazon.com we were able to end 2004 with over $500,000 in new revenues. Mercent Commerce System streamlined and automated our order processing, saving us the equivalent of three full-time seasonal employees.”

“To remain competitive, retailers must expand their online product marketing efforts beyond their own e-commerce Websites,” said Eric Best, CEO of Mercent, “we’re excited that our retail customers including SportStation are experiencing success by utilizing Mercent Commerce System to sell through leading online channels.”

Mercent's new customers represent the fastest growing online shopping categories:

• As online sales increase, some sectors are experiencing extremely high growth, with online sales expected to increase more than 40 percent in the health and beauty (61%); apparel (42%); and flowers, cards, and gifts (41%) categories. (“The State of Retailing 7.0”, Forrester Research / Shop.org)
• Online sales of apparel and accessories are expected to reach $12 billion by 2008, accounting for 4.9 percent of all apparel sales. (Jupiter Research)
• Home furnishings is the fastest growing online category. In 2004, 25% of online shoppers purchased a home furnishings item online, up from 17% a year before. (Roperis study, August 12, 2004)

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 merchandising offers and placement. Mercent Retail provides a single point of integration between existing retail management systems and The Mercent Shopping Network, supporting more than 50 leading online marketing channels including transactional marketplaces such as Amazon.com and SHOP.COM, shopping portals such as Shopping.com and Shopzilla, paid inclusion programs like Yahoo! Search Submit Pro, and affiliate marketing programs such as LinkShare and Performics -- making it easy for merchants to automate, measure, and optimize online product merchandising campaigns through these channels. Mercent customers include 1-800-Flowers, Benefit Cosmetics, REI, GUESS?, Bass Pro Shops, Redcats Group, Celebrate Express, Levenger, and other leading retailers. Mercent is an Amazon.com Certified System Integrator, Buy.com Gold Certified Partner, SHOP.COM Certified Data Feed Provider, and Yahoo! Search Submit Pro certified feed provider. Mercent is a venture-funded company based in Seattle, WA. For more information, visit www.mercent.com.

Contact
Marnie Cannon
Communications Director, Mercent
206-832-3900
press@mercent.com