Shopatron Delivers Faster Online Stores and Better Conversion Rates for Holiday Season

San Luis Obispo, CA, November 18, 2009 – Shopatron, the leading provider of global eCommerce solutions for consumer goods manufacturers, has launched a platform upgrade to its SaaS solution that reduces page load times 20% to 50% for participating online stores and eCommerce websites. This dramatic improvement is raising visitor-to-sales conversion rates by up to 15% in time for the holiday season.

Shopatron's Confident Order Exchange (Coex) now contains over 700 brands and over 12,000 retailers worldwide. With this success has come the responsibility for the management of hundreds of online catalogs – including hosting of all the content, images, video clips and downloadable files associated with these stores and websites. Shopatron currently hosts over 1.3 million image files for its clients.

Starting in mid-summer 2009, Shopatron has deployed a number of technical enhancements to the eCommerce infrastructure, highlighted with the integration of an enterprise-class content delivery network (CDN) - Limelight. In choosing a CDN, Sean Collier, CTO of Shopatron, considered the requirements to support the large number of images, to host various types of rich digital media and to support optimal performance globally. Limelight was the perfect match for these requirements with a dedicated server network comprised of 900 connections and thousands of servers to meet the demands of a global audience.

Since the launch of the CDN last month, Shopatron page load times have been reduced by 20% in the US and up to 50% in Europe. This reduction in page load times has lead to a clear up-tick in sales conversion rates on Shopatron client sites. As an example, Breyer Horses, a Shopatron brand in the specialty toy industry, has experienced a 14% increase in visitor-to-sales conversion during this period.

“We were already happy working with Shopatron to integrate our retailers into the eCommerce program before this, but with the increased performance and conversion rates, Shopatron has added high performance to the list of solution advantages,” said Anthony Fleischmann, President of Reeves International, Inc. / Breyer Animal Creations. “And because Shopatron is a hosted solution, we didn’t have to do anything to take advantage of this upgrade – it was automatically integrated into our store. When customers come ringing this holiday season, they are going to receive excellent website performance in addition to a comprehensive selection and strong retailer support.”

“When we first set out to improve the customer experience offered by our clients, our research showed a strong correlation between page load time and conversion rates in online stores,” said Shopatron’s Mr. Collier. “By integrating a content delivery network, we are already seeing the impact on the shopper buying experience. The increased sales will benefit our clients and their retail fulfillment partners this holiday season.”

About Shopatron
Shopatron, Inc., the leading provider of global eCommerce solutions for consumer goods industries, allows merchants to engage consumers with a fantastic experience from shopping through fulfillment. Orders placed on Shopatron merchant websites are filled by a managed, distributed network of fulfillment partners, typically local retailers. Local fulfillment speeds delivery, motivates fulfillment partners to stock more inventory, and facilitates In-Store Pickup, a convenience valued by a majority of online shoppers.

Headquartered in San Luis Obispo, CA, Shopatron operates Coex Freedom, an order exchange with more than 600 merchants and 10,000 fulfillment partners across 35 consumer products industries. Some of Shopatron's merchant clients include Berkley Fishing, Brooks Running, Callaway Golf, D'Addario, Johnson Outdoors, Mammut, MK Diamond, Nordica, Panasonic, Spy Optic, Stearns, and Thule. For more information and a full client list, visit ecommerce.shopatron.com.