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Demandware Announces Free, Automatic Seasonal Upgrades For All Customers; Retailers Benefit from Demandware's on-Demand eCommerce Platform with New Merchandising Functionality for 2006 Holiday Season


September 20, 2006; 09:22 AM
Demandware (www.demandware.com) announced the company will provide free, automatic seasonal upgrades that deliver continuous eCommerce innovation and revenue-driving benefits to all customers each and every quarter. Demandware customers including Bare Escentuals, Gardener's Supply Company, Playmobil, and Sanrio gain new capabilities to differentiate their brand and improve the user experience with each shopping season. In this Fall release, Demandware has added new merchandising functionality to help retailers prepare for the 2006 Holiday Season.

New eCommerce Functionality for Fall Release

With guidance from its customers, Demandware has added new merchandising features to its already rich eCommerce platform. Among the enhancements in this Fall release are faceted search, search engine optimization tools and new features that enable retailers to more effectively manage their assortment and market offers across multiple eCommerce sites. Benefits of these features are outlined below:

-- UX Studio(TM) - Demandware's User Experience (UX) Studio empowers a retailer's own web team with the ability to directly control the design and functionality of their eCommerce sites. UX Studio provides visual design tools, A/B split testing, a library of pre-built business objects, and support for Web 2.0 standards such as AJAX, CSS, and ECMA/JavaScript to free retailers from routine dependence on outside assistance.

-- Faceted Search - Demandware's eCommerce platform provides retailers with site search functionality that helps customers find merchandise quickly and easily. Search attributes are identified, segmented and intuitively filtered for drill down by any number of attributes such as style, color, size, etc.

-- Search Engine Optimization Tools - In addition to its already robust Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools for customizing page titles and spider-friendly URLs, Demandware has integrated Google Sitemaps, enabling eCommerce managers to directly feed site structure, content and metadata into Google's index.

-- Catalog Syndication - Demandware has developed a new Catalog Syndication feature, enabling retailers to share any or all data from any catalog repository, across various storefronts. This eliminates the labor required to replicate and maintain product information as it is re-used for seasonal catalogs or across various brands.

-- Price Books - Demandware's new Price Books feature allows merchants to vary pricing for the same item based on a customer group or catalog code. For example, retailers can vary prices for first-time visitors, return shoppers, for those referred by a shopping comparison engine, email campaign, affiliate site, wholesale buyers and more.

"Demandware's flexible platform is allowing our business to push onsite search to the limit," says Max Harris, Director of Ecommerce at America's Gardening Resource. "On every category page on our Dutch Gardens' site, we've customized faceted search to allow shoppers to instantly find the perfect selection based on color, growing zone, height, season of bloom, light requirements and more - all with a single query. This has provided us with a search user interface customized to our livegoods product line, offering our customers a compelling alternative to traditional search and browsing paradigms. And Demandware's commitment to delivering new functionality each quarter, helps us stay ahead of the competition every season."

Riding the eCommerce Wave

According to a recent Forrester Research report by eCommerce analyst Tamara Mendelsohn, 37% of North American and European enterprises that sell products or services online will either purchase or upgrade a commerce platform in 2006. "As companies push the limits of their eCommerce technologies to support multi-channel and international strategies, many are replacing their existing commerce platforms in the search for greater flexibility and scalability." ("Commerce Platforms: Build Or Buy?" Forrester, January 20, 2006).

"We recognize that retailers need continual merchandising control, flexibility and adaptability in an eCommerce platform and as a result, we are providing seasonal enhancements to deliver benefits to our customers," said Stephan Schambach, president and CEO of Demandware. "Each season, Demandware is updating our already feature-rich eCommerce platform, with new capabilities that help retailers service their customers online - better and faster."

On-Demand eCommerce Delivers Seasonal Innovation with Lower Costs and Risk

Demandware's eCommerce platform, a true on-demand service, provides a number of benefits to end users, including:

-- Seasonal innovation via frequent hands-free upgrades

-- Rapid deployment and time to value

-- Reduced infrastructure costs

-- Increased control, flexibility, functionality and interoperability

-- No up front enterprise license fees or upgrades fees

-- High performance and availability without additional hardware requirements

Forrester Research analyst Tamara Mendelson touts the benefits of the service-oriented software model in her January 20, 2006 report, "Commerce Platforms: Build or Buy?" According to Mendelson, a service orientation "allows firms to achieve strategic advantage through custom business services that deliver value to customers while leveraging the lower cost and risk of a packaged solution."

Simplified Site Deployment and Management for Multi-brand Enterprise Customers

Demandware's eCommerce platform has several updated features that make it easy for retailers and integrators to maintain multiple sites. Well-defined interfaces, documentation and libraries of pre-built eCommerce functionality significantly reduce time to launch. In addition, Demandware provides customers with expert implementation services through partners such as USi, T-Systems and Fluid.

Toy manufacturer Playmobil is currently implementing Demandware with the help of European partner T-Systems and plans to re-launch ten international sites on the new technology. According to Playmobil Director of eCommerce, Michael Konzmann, "The way in which Demandware's platform is built and continually updated enables us to get our site up and running quickly and cost-effectively and reach our goal of providing our customers with the best service possible."

About Demandware, Inc.

Demandware provides an enterprise-class eCommerce platform, delivered as a service, which offers online retailers the merchandising control, flexibility, functionality and interoperability of a full eCommerce application suite with a pricing model aligned with results. With Demandware, merchants can deliver custom eCommerce solutions without buying software or operating expensive datacenters. Demandware was founded by a team with proven expertise from leading eCommerce software and infrastructure companies including ATG, Macromedia, Intershop and NaviSite. The company has strong backing from North Bridge Venture Partners and General Catalyst Partners. For more information about Demandware, visit www.demandware.com.


For Demandware
Gretchen Mather, 617-877-7273
or
Leslie Drohan, 508-826-2130
[email protected]

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