BELLEVUE, Wash., and REDMOND, Wash., April 3, 2000 — Microsoft Corp. and Mercata Inc. ( http://www.mercata.com/ ), an e-commerce company that enables individual buyers to combine their purchasing power to achieve discounts on high-quality, brand-name products, today announced the launch of a Spring Promotional Drive. This relationship will complement Mercata’s agreement with Microsoft on the MSN TM network of Internet services ( http://www.msn.com/ ).
Mercata promotes its services on MSN eShop with advertisements on the eShop home page, department, subdepartment and buying guide sections. As part of the Spring Promotional Drive, Mercata will run online advertisements on the front and living pages of MSNBC, on WindowsMedia.com and Entertainment channels, and on the Slate® online magazine of arts, politics and culture.
For the Spring Promotional drive with MSN, Mercata will promote its PowerBuy feature, which provides limited-time buying opportunities in which the price of the featured product or service dynamically decreases — based on parameters determined by the seller — as more customers join the buying group.
“Using enriched ad technology from MSN, Mercata can update pricing on specific PowerBuy items within the banner ad,”
said Gregg Albright, western regional ad sales manager for MSN.
“With this sophisticated technology, visitors to MSN can see Mercata’s online purchasing benefits in real time. MSN also enables Mercata to reach targeted audiences that are likely to shop and purchase online.”
“Mercata’s demand aggregation business methods and technology allow our customers to achieve discounts on high-quality, brand-name products,”
said Jerome Pache, vice president of Business Development at Mercata.
”
MSN eShop is the ideal venue for us to reach a broad range of Internet customers who are comfortable shopping and purchasing online through our We-Commerce TM Network group buying technology.”
About Mercata
Mercata has developed a new form of Internet-based group buying that combines individual buyers’ purchasing power to achieve discounts on high-quality, brand-name products and services. Mercata’s Web site ( http://www.mercata.com/ ) allows customers to participate in group buying through its PowerBuy TM feature, which provides limited-time buying opportunities in which the price of the featured product or service dynamically decreases — based on parameters determined by the seller — as more customers join the buying group. For online businesses, Mercata offers an e-commerce solution through its We-Commerce Network ( http://www.we-commerce.com/ ) that enables merchants and portal community and content Web sites to offer merchandise for sale using Mercata’s proprietary business methods and technology. The We-Commerce Network is powered by Mercata’s patent-pending business methods and technology. Founded in September 1998, Mercata is a privately held company with funding from Vulcan Ventures Inc., Highland Capital Partners, Global Retail Partners, Europ@web, Amerindo and other investors.
About MSN
MSN Sales delivers customized advertising solutions for the Everday Web. MSN is the network of Internet services from Microsoft Corp. that helps people better organize the Web around what’s important to them. The network of MSN services, located on the Web at MSN.com ( http://msn.com/ ), helps people easily stay in touch with friends and colleagues, make smart and secure purchasing decisions, and get more done. MSN offers award-winning e-mail functionality; personal communications services; wireless services information; customizable access to news; popular sites for health, personal finance, traveling, investing, automotive services, shopping and more; an online community; a Web search engine and directories; and top-rated Internet access.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft, MSN and Slate are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Mercata, We-Commerce and PowerBuy are trademarks of Mercata Inc.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft® Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
