Holiday Season Takes Off at MSN eShop With 188 Percent More Visitors Than Last Year

REDMOND, Wash., Nov. 23, 2001 — The MSN® network of Internet services today announced tremendous momentum going into the holiday season, with a 150 percent increase in the number of shoppers who visited MSN eShop during the past week compared with the same week last year and a 188 percent increase in the number of shoppers in October 2001 compared with the same month last year. 1

“The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year in the retail world. The extent to which that tradition is being reflected today at MSN eShop is a clear indicator that online shopping has become a normal part of many people’s lives,”
said Jim Barr, general manager of commerce services at MSN.
“It’s exciting to see more people this holiday season take advantage of the useful, reliable and convenient service MSN eShop provides, and we look forward to this growth continuing.”

Holiday Shopping Trends

  • Based on early data, the total number of online orders through MSN eShop is expected to be two and a half times more than the 2000 holiday season.

  • Programs developed by MSN have produced record amounts of sales with merchant partners such as Dell Computer Corp., Nordstrom Inc., Gap Inc., and Cooking.com.

  • The hottest items thus far have been movie-related and wireless products, which can be found easily on the MSN top-20 list or through the MSN gift guides at http://www.holidays.msn.com/ .

MSN Holiday Reward: Shop and Earn up to $100 on MSN eShop

MSN eShop is the ideal holiday shopping destination for consumers, offering a wide selection of products from brands they trust and innovative tools and services that can help them find great gifts at the best prices. This holiday season, MSN eShop is offering consumers a special cash-back offer to help stretch holiday shopping budgets: For every $100 spent at participating merchants from MSN eShop, consumers will be rewarded with $20 after the holidays through the MSN Holiday Reward promotion exclusively available on MSN. 2 MSN eShop offers the following leading services:

  • Bargain Center. MSN eShop’s Bargain Center provides a central location in which shoppers can find sale items from MSN merchants. It is like having every sale rack in the mall in one place. MSN works with merchants daily to update the deals frequently to help ensure that adequate inventory is on hand to meet demand.

  • Seasonal gift guides. As the seasons and the temperatures change, certain products become more sought after than others. MSN eShop creates seasonal gift guides that display the most popular products and categories for that time of year. This holiday season Gift Guides include everything from Kid Gift-O-Matic for young children to Gadgeteria for older children.

  • Procrastination Central. For last minute shoppers, MSN eShop offers Procrastination Central. Those who order as late as Dec. 21, can still receive delivery in time for the holidays. Launching on Dec. 11, Procrastination Central offers consumers a centralized location where they can find a variety of gifts from trusted retailers.

  • Concierge service. Gift Concierge representatives use real-time chat to answer questions for online shoppers, help them find specific items, identify resources where shoppers can compare specific product features, connect them with the right buyer’s guide, or simply get them started with suggestions for that hard-to-buy-for person from MSN eShop’s 10 topical gift guides.

About MSN

MSN attracts more than 270 million unique users worldwide per month. Available in 34 markets and 18 languages, MSN is a world leader in delivering Web services to consumers and digital marketing solutions to businesses worldwide. The most useful and innovative online service today, MSN brings consumers everything they need from the Web to make the most of their time online. MSN is located on the Web at http://www.msn.com/ . MSN worldwide sites are located at http://www.msn.com/worldwide.ashx .

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies 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.

1 Source: Nielsen/NetRatings, October 2001

2 Certain offer restrictions apply. See http://eshop.msn.com/softcontent/softcontent.aspx?scmId=907 for offer details.

Microsoft and MSN are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

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.

Related Posts