CrossMedia Services Reports Big Jump in Web Research for In-Store Shopping During 2004 Holidays

CrossMedia Services Reports Big Jump in Web Research for In-Store Shopping During 2004 Holidays

Most Researched Item for Holiday Web-to-Store Shopping: Xbox(R)

CHICAGO, Dec. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- CrossMedia Services, Inc., the leading provider of web-to-store marketing solutions for national and local retailers, reported today 43% more shoppers used retailers' web sites to look at items to buy in stores during the 2004 holiday season compared to last year.

The data from 14 major retail customers of CrossMedia Services, including Target, Sears, Home Depot, Office Depot and Best Buy, show 14.7 million shoppers looked online for specials being promoted at stores during the period from the Saturday before Thanksgiving through Dec. 24, 2004 compared to 10.3 million during the same time period in 2003*.

CrossMedia Services hosts web information about in-store promotions for these retail giants as well as dozens of other national and regional brands.

During the 2004 holiday shopping season, Thanksgiving Day had the highest online activity to CrossMedia Services clients, with nearly 1.3 million Internet visits.

CrossMedia Services offers consumers the opportunity to research across stores through ShopLocal.com, its local shopping portal. ShopLocal is the leading web site in the rapidly growing local shopping segment of the Internet, with more than 2.1 million visitors using the site during the holiday season*.

On ShopLocal.com, Microsoft's Xbox(R) edged out Sony PlayStation(R) as the most-searched-for item during the holiday shopping season. Rounding out the most popular items on ShopLocal.com were Nintendo gaming systems, plasma- screen TVs, furniture, DVD players, digital cameras, and Apple's iPod(R).

ShopLocal.com uses a zip-code search engine that allows users to find stores within a specific radius. Retailers use ShopLocal.com to find shoppers who search by product category, store or brand name. The site is updated daily to reflect current sales. It allows consumers to create personal shopping lists online that they can print and bring to stores. Consumers can receive e-mail alerts for sale items and favorite stores.

* Data reported from November 20-December 24, 2004 (35 days) as compared to November 22-December 24, 2003 (33 days).

CrossMedia Services, Inc. is the industry expert on web-to-store marketing and the leading provider of turnkey solutions for brick and mortar retailers, catalog retailers and industrial catalogers that enable the targeting of promotions to shoppers via the Internet. CrossMedia Services transforms printed promotions (such as sales circulars, catalogs, run-of-press ads, direct mail, etc.) into an interactive Web format. Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI), Tribune Company (NYSE:TRB), and Knight Ridder, Inc. (NYSE:KRI), are partners in CrossMedia Services, Inc. and other joint ventures to provide consumers access to great online products such as CareerBuilder.com, Cars.com and Apartments.com.


Source: CrossMedia Services, Inc.

CONTACT: David Hamel of CrossMedia Services, Inc., +1-312-616-5800, ext.
130, dhamel@crossmediaservices.com ; or Jim Prescott of Prescott
Communications, Inc., +1-708-717-2110, jim@prescottinc.com

Web site: http://www.crossmediaservices.com/


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