SOURCE: Mercent

November 25, 2008 08:05 ET

Mercent Launches Enterprise Seller Tools for eBay and PayPal

Leading Online Channel Management Solutions and Services Company First to Empower Merchants Through eBay Large Merchant Services

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - November 25, 2008) - Mercent, a leading provider of online marketing technology and services for retail merchants, today announced the launch of catalog merchandising and order integration software for high-volume eBay sellers, integrated directly with eBay Large Merchant Services, a new set of APIs on the eBay platform currently in public beta.

Mercent now provides enterprise retailers the ability to optimize listings across eBay, and efficiently process high order and payment volumes through eBay and PayPal. Mercent is the first eBay integrator to leverage eBay's new Large Merchant Services, designed to increase profitable, high-volume product sales for large sellers on eBay.

SmartBargains.com, a division of Retail Convergence, Inc. and ranked #100 on the 2008 Internet Retail Top 500 Guide, is Mercent's first client to adopt the company's eBay selling solution. Mercent's expanded platform now offers large retailers the ability to optimize SKU-level assortment, product content (which drives search and browse visibility), merchandising offers (critical to competitive selling), performance-driven product categorization, and the complete, PayPal-integrated order and payments processing pipeline on eBay.

For years, Mercent has provided leading retailers like REI, GUESS?, PetSmart, and 1-800-Flowers with technology and services to maximize revenue, profits, and inventory turns through online marketplaces and comparison shopping engines.

"We're extremely pleased with Mercent's eBay seller tools," said Mark McWeeny, EVP and GM of SmartBargains.com "It's apparent through our partnership that Mercent has applied the best features and practices of their longstanding retail marketing platform to this exciting new channel."

Mercent helps leading online retailers like SmartBargains.com drive revenues and profits through ecommerce shopping channels like eBay by providing consolidated feed management, reporting and optimization tools through the on-demand Mercent Retail platform. Mercent is recognized by many in the ecommerce industry as the only channel management vendor to provide a complete marketplace integration that includes automated delivery of order data from third-party marketplaces directly into the retailer's existing inventory and fulfillment systems.

Benefits of Mercent Retail for eBay include:

--  Complete product and order feed integration -- ensure your product
    listings are always synchronized with your back-end systems without having
    to manually download order reports or upload inventory figures
    
--  Streamlined product catalog management -- quickly map your products
    and categories to the best performing eBay categories.  Use automated
    content rules to apply content changes, such as inserting promotional text,
    across definable segments of your product catalog
    
--  Comprehensive analytics -- track and report on the revenue, profits,
    cost-per-order (CPO), and other key retail advertising metrics associated
    with orders on eBay and other online shopping channels
    
--  Powerful optimization features -- Automatically optimize advertising
    campaigns based on listing-specific and product-specific performance
    parameters including stock levels, gross margin, cost-per-click (CPC),
    ROAS, and CPO
    

"Since 2005, Mercent has been helping enterprise retailers extract maximum value from online shopping channels and shopping feeds," said Mercent CEO Eric Best. "Using the Mercent Retail platform and Large Merchant Services on the eBay platform we can quickly integrate sellers into the eBay marketplace. For large, branded merchants looking for automated control over product merchandising across eBay, Mercent Retail is the ultimate on-demand software."

Information regarding Mercent Retail marketplace, 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.

Information about eBay's Large Merchant Services can be found at: http://developer.ebay.com/products/large-merchant-services/

About SmartBargains.com

SmartBargains.com is the leading online retailer for unbelievable finds for women at outrageously low prices. SmartBargains.com has given over 3,000,000 consumers unmatched bragging rights by ensuring their hit rate is higher than any other bargain shopping experience. Since 2000, SmartBargains.com has saved its customers over $1 billion. SmartBargains.com is a venture-backed, privately held company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.smartbargains.com.

About Mercent

Mercent provides online marketing technology and services to help retailers optimize performance across online marketing channels. Mercent's on-demand platform, Mercent Retail, connects existing retail management systems with more than 50 online shopping destinations including transactional marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon.com, comparison shopping engines (CSEs) such as Shopzilla, paid inclusion programs like Yahoo! Search Submit Pro, and affiliate marketing programs such as LinkShare and Commission Junction. 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, Bidz.com, Bass Pro Shops, GUESS?, Levenger, 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. Mercent is a venture-funded company based in Seattle, WA. For more information, visit www.mercent.com.