Levenger Selects Mercent to Increase Online Sales

High-End Retailer Gains Greater Marketing Efficiencies and Complete Integration With Back-End Retail Systems

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
Mercent is a leading provider of online channel marketing technology and services for retailers. Through its award-winning Mercent Retail™ SAAS technology and Mercent Performance™ professional services, Mercent helps the world’s most successful online merchants including 1-800-Flowers, Bass Pro Shops, Brookstone, GUESS?, L'Occitane USA, Redcats Group, and REI optimize online shopping channel marketing campaigns to drive customer acquisition, revenues, profits, and inventory velocity. Mercent is the single point of integration with a vast online advertising network that includes transactional marketplaces such as Amazon.com and eBay; comparison shopping engines (CSEs) such as Shopping.com and NextTag; affiliate marketing programs such as LinkShare and the Google Affiliate Network; and other product advertising channels including Microsoft Bing Cashback and Google Product Listing Ads (PLA). The company is a 'Selling on Amazon.com' Certified System Integrator, Buy.com Gold Certified Partner, eBay Certified Provider, certified Google Product Search Partner. Founded by a seasoned team of Amazon.com veterans, Mercent is a venture-funded company based in Seattle, WA. For more information, visit www.mercent.com.

Mercent PR Contact
Kristine Szarkowitz
press@mercent.com
Tel: 206-832-3900