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Social Shopping Networks: Ciao Connects With ePages - Announcing Technology Partnership
LONDON, HAMBURG and MUNICH, Germany, February 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Ciao GmbH, one of Europe's leading consumer review and price comparison websites, and ePages, a leading provider of e-business solutions, announced a technology partnership today. Ciao's comparison shopping service, driven by its multi-million member online community that produces user-generated content by reviewing millions of products and services, is now integrated as an additional feature in ePages. E-shops based on ePages can seamlessly connect to http://www.ciao.co.uk. The shop itself as well as the products offered can be rated with one simple click. By cooperating with Ciao, ePages extends its software with comprehensive consumer advice services - offering online merchants an opportunity to participate in the social networks of consumer rated and reviewed products. Social commerce illustrates a groundbreaking change in e-commerce towards interactive and recommendation-based shopping. These trends, of course, need to be put into practice. ePages and Ciao now enable small and medium-sized businesses to benefit from this online shopping revolution. Ciao offers detailed opinions from consumers, price and product information and direct shopping links to individual retail websites. Online merchants using ePages benefit from highly effective online sales solutions for large merchants along with the new integration for products into Ciao listings. Ciao is an extremely versatile advertising platform offering effective marketing opportunities and a targeted way of addressing customers and attracting extra visitors to a web shop. With the ePages - Ciao integration, the distribution channel of online merchants is further extended, creating more business for the merchant. "As Ciao offers the possibility to read reviews of over 3.4 million products, consumers are able to make a well informed purchase decision. We believe that for online stores this will result in better conversion rates. In ePages we have found a strategic partner whose e-commerce technology ideally fits our service. This partnership brings together two innovative e-commerce companies that combine each other's strengths for the benefit of the consumer", says Stephan Musikant, Managing Director of Ciao GmbH. "The expectations in online shopping are constantly increasing and social commerce is a trend that users are adopting rapidly. By enabling merchants to use the Ciao consumer recommendation portal and providing direct connections to price comparisons, we're giving our 40,000 online merchants another competitive edge in a fast growing market", adds Wilfried Beeck, CEO of ePages. About Ciao GmbH Ciao GmbH is one of the leading online comparison shopping and opinion portals in Europe, present in seven European countries (http://www.ciao.de, http://www.ciao.co.uk, http://www.ciao.fr, http://www.ciao.it, http://www.ciao.es, http://www.ciao-shopping.nl, http://www.ciao.se). Ciao offers users over 3.4 million products and 4.3 million consumer reviews for more than 20 product categories such as cars, computers, digital cameras, mobile phones, travelling, electronics or household appliances. The websites in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the UK have been ranked amongst the most popular e-shopping portals of each country (Source: Nielson NetRatings 04/2007). Ciao GmbH was founded in 1999 in Munich. In April 2005 Ciao GmbH became a subsidiary of Greenfield Online Inc. (NASDAQ: SRVY). Ciao GmbH has its headquarters in Munich and regional offices in London, Paris, Timisoara and Wroclaw. About ePages ePages Software powers more than 40,000 online shops, making it a leading provider of e-commerce solutions worldwide. Based on ePages Hosting Edition, a scalable shop hosting platform, numerous hosting providers and telecommunications companies offer powerful hosted web shops. These include British Telecom, Lycos, Pipex, Host Europe, T-Online, Amen and Strato. A worldwide network of ePages partners tailors e-commerce solutions for small and medium-sized companies, customised precisely to their requirements. Companies like Leonardo, Lindt, Skoda or Encyclopaedia Britannica run their e-commerce activities on ePages Merchant Edition. ePages is based in Hamburg and has offices in San Francisco, London, Barcelona and Jena. Press contact Ciao GmbH, Ulrike Piesch, Tel: +49-89-25-551-796, ulrike.piesch@ciao-group.com ePages, Jörn Wachsmann-Wurr, Tel: +49-40-3501-88-261, pr@epages.de, http://www.epages.co.uk kulow kommunikation, Tina Kulow/Cindy Ulitzsch, Tel: +49-40-4327-7005/2351-7776, tk@kulow-kommunikation.com






