Consumer Shopping Engines Become Profitable Medium for Drs. Foster & Smith with Help from Channel Intelligence

September 4, 2008; 07:06 AM

Orlando, FL, September 04, 2008 --(PR.com)-- Shopping engines are a viable online sales channel, yet many retailers lack the tools and resources needed to achieve significant profitability in this niche advertising medium. Like many online retailers, Drs. Foster & Smith wanted to improve the profitability of its shopping engine programs. Channel Intelligence, Inc. (CI), the leader in innovative marketing technology solutions for manufacturers and retailers, details in its latest case study how it worked with Drs. Foster & Smith to turn this important consumer shopping medium into a more profitable online sales channel for the pet retailer giant, achieving double-digit increases in several key metrics within one year.

After trying a web-based self service application to manage its shopping engine data feeds, Drs. Foster & Smith realized that reaching a higher level of profitability with this channel would require more industry expertise. “Our program was progressing in a moderate fashion,” comments Matt Stelter, Assistant Manager of Internet Marketing for Drs. Foster and Smith. “We did see an increase in sales and knew we were getting some new customers, but overall, our shopping engine program was not as profitable as we would have liked.”

In the one year period the retailer has worked with CI’s SellCast™ Retailer Solutions, it saw total sales from shopping engines jump by 17 percent accompanied by a 17 percent increase in number of orders and 16 percent growth in units per order. Return-on-ad-spend has improved by 11 percent for Drs. Foster & Smith’s shopping engine program, turning this channel into an efficient, highly profitable medium for the retailer. Adds Stelter, “We are extremely pleased with the results we have seen over the past 12 months and feel confident these trends will continue.”

Keys to success addressed in the case study include access to shopping engine program management tools based on specialized industry knowledge and highly optimized data feed services. With complete, accurate product data, correct item placement, and actionable analytics at its fingertips, Drs. Foster and Smith can now measure performance accurately and make appropriate business decisions with confidence.

SellCast™ Retailer Solutions offers services that help drive profitable sales from search engines, shopping engines, online marketplaces, and affiliate sites to online retailers and local retail stores. Through a combination of innovative data optimization services and the option for complete end-to-end management of this marketing channel, SellCast™ provides retailers with the tools to achieve success with product-focused online advertising.

To access this case study and more, please visit http://www.channelintelligence.com/sellcast/case_studies.html.

About Drs. Foster & Smith

The largest pet supply cataloger and online retailer in the nation and no. 91 on the 2008 Internet Retailer Top 500 list, Drs. Foster & Smith started out in 1983 as three dedicated veterinarians operating a handful of practices. Now with well over 600 employees and a thriving eCommerce presence, Drs. Foster & Smith has become a nationwide effort to educate and empower pet owners everywhere from its headquarters in the heart of beautiful Northern Wisconsin. The company’s website provides a wealth of information and products for pet lovers with 24/7 customer service, a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and low shipping costs. For more information, visit www.DrsFosterSmith.com.

About Channel Intelligence, Inc. (CI)

CI is a product data technology and marketing company focused on helping retailers and manufacturers make their products easier for consumers to find and buy on the Internet and in local retail stores. The CI product database is capable of storing, managing, optimizing and analyzing hundreds of millions of products every day. This database powers product data for leading manufacturers and retailers in Computing, Hardware, Tools, Appliances, Consumer Electronics, Toys and other Consumer Product industries such as Apparel, Cosmetics and Jewelry. CI offers innovative suites of services for hundreds of the world’s best known manufacturers, retailers and publishers and provides distribution of product data to over 50 destination websites, including the proprietary CI Ad Network. Cultivating partnerships with some of the best solution providers in the eCommerce arena, CI is a partner company of Internet Capital Group (Nasdaq: ICGE) and Aweida Capital Management. CI was founded in 1999 by CEO Robert Wight and EVP Alan Fulmer and is headquartered in Orlando, Fla., with offices in Geneva, Switzerland and London, England. Learn more at www.channelintelligence.com.