Online Retailers "Resilient, Not Immune" to Challenging Holiday Season

-Retailers Using Free Shipping, New Web Features to Hook Shoppers-
WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--
Though the holiday season will be challenging across the board,
online retailers are expecting more than coal in their stockings.
According to results of the 2008 eHoliday Study, conducted by
Shopzilla(R) for Shop.org, more than half of online retailers (56.1%)
expect their holiday sales to increase at least fifteen percent over
last year. However, the rate of growth is slowing: three-fourths
(77.5%) of retailers surveyed last year expected their sales to grow
more than 15 percent.

"Online retailers are resilient, but not immune, to the challenges
of this holiday season," said Scott Silverman, Executive Director of
Shop.org. "Retailers will be heavily promotional to attract shoppers
on a budget, but have also invested in new site features to improve
the online buying experience."

Despite an increase in transportation costs, retailers do not plan
to cut back on popular free shipping promotions. This year, the
majority of retailers (78%) plan to offer free shipping with
conditions(1) at some point during the holiday season, consistent with
last year's levels. Retailers are compensating for increased shipping
costs by renegotiating terms with shipping providers (40.4%), closely
managing company headcount (33.3%), and reducing other promotions
(15.8%). In addition, one-fifth (21.3%) of retailers say they will
require a higher purchase amount for customers to be eligible for free
shipping and one in ten (10.6%) will cut back on usage of free
shipping with no conditions.

In addition to free shipping promotions, many retailers have
rolled out new website features to improve the customer experience.
Features like improved site search, which 42.9 percent of retailers
added or improved since last holiday season, will help customers
navigate sites more easily. Other features like product video (42.6%)
and customer reviews (32.7%) can give shoppers more information to
make buying decisions. For price-focused shoppers, retailers have
added and enhanced both clearance sale pages (27.1%) and featured sale
pages (31.3%). In addition, retailers continue to experiment with
social networking as nearly one-fourth (25.0%) of online retailers
added a Facebook page this year.

As in previous years, consumers acknowledge that 24-hour shopping
convenience is one of - sale from anyone, anywhere on the Web -- at
the best price for their lifestyle. Shopzilla also operates the
BizRate research division and consumer feedback network that collects
more than one million consumer reviews of stores and products each
month. Based in Los Angeles, Shopzilla has sites in the United
Kingdom, France and Germany and the company is owned by Scripps
Networks Interactive Inc. (NYSE:SNI), which include national lifestyle
TV networks such as HGTV, The Food Network, Fine Living and more. For
more information, please visit www.shopzilla.com
http://www.shopzilla.com

About Shop.org

Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation, is the
world's leading membership community for digital retail. Founded in
1996, Shop.org's 700 members include the 10 largest retailers in the
U.S. and more than 60 percent of the Internet Retailer Top 100
E-Retailers. It's where the best retail minds come together to gain
the insight, knowledge and intelligence to make smarter, more informed
decisions in the evolving world of the Internet and multichannel
retailing. Shop.org programs and activities include benchmarking
research, events and networking communities.

(1) Free shipping with conditions means that a customer must
purchase a certain item or a certain number of or dollar amount of
merchandise before receiving the offer.

Note: Scott Silverman, Executive Director of Shop.org, and Helen
Malani, Shopzilla's Online Shopping Expert, are both available for
interviews.

Shop.org:
Kathy Grannis, (202) 783-7971
grannisk@nrf.com
or
Shopzilla:
Stacey Sanner, (425) 638-7121
ssanner@waggeneredstrom.com;
Mariella Souflix, (212) 551-4820
msouflis@waggeneredstrom.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008