BEDFORD, Mass.--Aug. 28, 2006-- Lillian Vernon Wins Prestigious eTail Award for Excellence in Site Search Four Redcats USA Sites Ranked Among Nielsen/NetRatings Top 10 in Online Conversion Rates
Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), a supplier of leading technology to develop, deploy, integrate and manage business applications, today announced that five out of the top ten retailers representing the industry's highest online conversion rates use advanced eCommerce search, navigation and dynamic merchandising technology from its Progress(R) EasyAsk(R) product line. According to the Nielsen/NetRatings MegaView Online Retail report, Redcats USA's Lane Bryant Catalog, Chadwick's, Roaman's and KingSize brands achieved double-digit conversion rates in the month of June 2006. Among them, leading women's apparel retailer Lane Bryant Catalog ranked first with an astounding 24 percent unique visitor-to-buyer conversion rate.
"Our sites are designed to offer a convenient, reliable shopping experience for customers throughout the world," said Bob Viscovich, senior vice president of online technology for Redcats USA. "We constantly look to sophisticated search capabilities to extend our marketers' abilities to consistently and dynamically merchandise products online. EasyAsk enables us to harness these opportunities and gives customers a quick and easy way to find products and refine searches based on individual interests."
The EasyAsk product delivers the retail industry's most intuitive search and merchandising capabilities. EasyAsk connects online shoppers to all existing product and services information and ensures a rich, engaging shopping experience across any sales interaction channel by putting precise, relevant answers in the hands of customers, agents and employees. The EasyAsk product enables retailers to creatively market and merchandise specific items, synchronize in-store, catalog and online promotions more easily, and analyze customer requests to conduct more intelligent interactions. Through a Merchandising Manager Dashboard(TM), retail business managers can quickly fine-tune business rules to promote, cross-sell and up-sell products.
Redcats, the parent company of Redcats USA, originally deployed the EasyAsk product in 2003 and today uses the technology as its standard search functionality and customer interface across all of its sites in the U.S., United Kingdom and France. Through a unified architecture, Redcats has increased efficiency and implemented eCommerce best practices across its leading retail Web sites worldwide, visited by approximately 25 million unique shoppers each month.
Lillian Vernon was recently honored at the eTail 2006 Conference in Philadelphia, winning the 4th Annual eTail Award for strategic vision and achievements in "Site Search." The eTail 2006 Awards were judged by an elite group of online retailers, including Hallmark, IKEA, L.L. Bean, Sears and more. Lillian Vernon also relies on the EasyAsk technology to help create a consistent and rewarding shopping experience across multiple channels. The EasyAsk product enables online shoppers to locate the most relevant and available merchandise using their own words and attributes of importance to them (i.e. price, product highlights, personalization, special offers and clearance items). The EasyAsk dictionary is directly linked to Lillian Vernon's product database and includes definitions for all products as well as a wealth of product-specific features. As a result, this leading retailer has experienced a 14 percent increase in conversion rates.
At Lillian Vernon, the EasyAsk product is also utilized by service representatives to provide real-time customer assistance to online shoppers. Representatives use site search to handle customer inquiries and quickly find merchandise, determine inventory and suggest relevant products to individuals. The EasyAsk product's reporting features allow Lillian Vernon to gain insight into which search requests return zero matches and use this data to determine what products are of interest to customers but not currently offered--valuable information for product development and marketing teams.
"With over 2.5 million online visitors during the holiday season, and over 6,000 SKUs available, our top priority is to make our products accessible to customers and ensure that the online shopping experience is as effortless and enjoyable as possible," said Kristen Montella, Director of Merchandise Marketing for Lillian Vernon. "Fifteen percent of our online shoppers go directly to the search feature on our homepage. Therefore, we use this feature like a virtual sales person, to open a dialog with customers. With EasyAsk, we understand how customers are using the search capabilities and anticipate even greater increases in conversion rates and average order sizes."
The EasyAsk product is fully integrated with all of Progress' leading-edge application infrastructure products, which offer retailers everything they need to deliver rich online customer experiences, reduce IT and operational costs, and better manage supply chain processes. Progress, together with its leading retail application partners and customers, achieves this by seamlessly integrating every element of the retail value chain, enabling retailers to deliver superior customer service, adapt quickly to changing business market conditions and react instantly to emerging commerce opportunities.
About Progress Software Corporation
Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS) is a global industry leader providing application infrastructure software for all aspects of the development, deployment, integration and management of business applications. Headquartered in Bedford, Mass., Progress can be reached at www.progress.com or +1-781-280-4000.
