Everest Software and MerchantAdvantage Deliver Online Retailers Innovative Comparison Shopping Solution

It is wonderful to start 2008 off with a strategic partnership with a formidable software company.

I am proud to announce that MerchantAdvantage, of which I am a co-founder, has done just that to help online merchants better manage their product catalog, data feed management needs when working with comparison shopping engines and marketplaces.

Here is an overview from a press release that Everest Software sent out about the strategic partnership with MerchantAdvantage and how we will be helping their clients into the future.

Check out Everest as a complete business management solution, they have been around for over a decade and have a wonderful product and check out MerchantAdvantage, maybe we can help you too.

-- Chip

<<<CLICK HERE>>> for full press release.

Everest Software®, the leading provider of business operating systems for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), recently announced the availability of Everest® eLink integrated with MerchantAdvantage Channel Management products. Through a strategic partnership, Everest and MerchantAdvantage are redefining e-Commerce by providing the SMB online merchant more ways to feed their product information to Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) and marketplaces. The robust all-in-one solution from Everest and MerchantAdvantage lets users analyze sales and respond to marketing campaigns in real-time, ensuring the highest return on marketing investment.

"As the number of CSEs continues to grow, it is imperative for SMBs to efficiently automate and streamline the transfer of product information between multiple CSEs," said Ian Michiels, Senior Analyst, Aberdeen Research. "Our research shows that SMB's struggle with the growing cost of managing and configuring dozens of CSEs for marketing efforts; it's just not cost-effective."

Each CSE aggregates a list of products from many sellers into a single portal - delivering an efficient shopping experience for the Internet shopper. While the CSE is an essential marketing channel for the online merchant, working with CSEs can overload the SMB, as each CSE requires a different process for merchants to publish their product details.

"Now, Everest gives online merchants an easy way to manage their CSE feeds and simultaneously increase sales," said Edwin Miller, CEO of Everest Software. "Online merchants can leverage Everest eLink and MerchantAdvantage to schedule the frequency of product updates and increase their return on investment by automatically removing items when they fall short of sales targets."

Everest eLink together with MerchantAdvantage lets clients:

1. Push product information to over 100 online marketing channels including CSEs such as Ciao, JellyFish, PriceGrabber, Pronto, Shopzilla, Google Product Search and Yahoo! Shopping
2. Discover which marketing channels, product categories and individual products are meeting expected return on ad-spend and adjust accordingly
3. Manage SKU level bidding at supported shopping CSE sites
4. Expand market reach while maintaining current marketing budget

"Effective CSE strategies focusing on category, subcategory, and individual SKU performance increases ROI sometimes five fold," explains Michael Lambert and Chip Arndt, co-founders of MerchantAdvantage. "MerchantAdvantage products give Everest e-Tailers the tools to manage profit-margins on marketing campaigns at the product level and the power to reach millions of potential new customers through a user friendly Web-based tool. We are honored to be an integral part of the Everest team to help clients grow their online business efficiently, intelligently and cost-effectively,"

<<<CLICK HERE>>> for full press release.