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Shopping Centers Today -> May 2001
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SHOPPERS MINE SALESMOUNTAIN FOR LOCAL DEALS
By Dave Bodamer
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Internet
portal SalesMountain.com allows users to enter their area
codes and find sales at nearby retailers.
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While selling goods on the Internet hasn’t been as profitable as brick-and-mortar and online merchants had hoped, they continue to explore the Internet’s potential for marketing.
Simply putting up a site that sells goods is not enough. So some retailers are turning to companies like Internet portal SalesMountain.com of Los Angeles. The company provides shoppers access to an online database of sales and special deals on products being sold at stores in their neighborhoods or at other Web sites.
SalesMountain, unlike ventures such as MyShoppingCenter.com, deals directly with retailers rather than developers, although both companies’ mission is the same: to drive customers to brick-and-mortar stores. But while MyShoppingCenter.com lets users search for deals at their local malls, SalesMountain enables them to shop all participating stores that are close to their homes, regardless of which center they might be located in. SalesMountain has several competitors that also provide links to sales at brick-and-mortar stores, including Saleshound.com and SalesCircular.com, but is considered to be the biggest of the three.
SalesMountain.com does not sell any goods itself. It is merely a search portal, like Yahoo! or Excite, only more specialized. It derives its revenues from the retailers that purchase ads on its site.
SalesMountain.com went live in July 1999, formed by Charles E. Hymowitz and Lee M. Weinberg. The two were childhood friends from Southern California whose mothers shopped together, sometimes driving miles away to go bargain hunting. Those trips, Hymowitz said, planted the seeds for the SalesMountain concept.
The search engine asks users to enter their area codes and then returns results from retailers that are geographically close to them. Shoppers can set the radius to broaden or reduce the number of results, and may search by product, service, store, price or brand.
As a marketing tool, retailers can post information on sales or promotions in conjunction with television, radio or newspaper advertisements. They also can pay to have their names show up higher on a list when a user conducts a search.
“SalesMountain.com is about using the power of the Internet to expand the advertising range of both brick-and-mortar stores and online retailers,” said Hymowitz, who is the company’s managing director of marketing and technology.
“Retailers spend an inordinate amount of money on advertising, but with other media they are restricted by time and space. Using SalesMountain.com is a cost-effective way to communicate with customers that are motivated to buy.”
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Hundreds of local and national retailers have signed on to the service, including Sears, Gap, Macy’s and Bed Bath & Beyond, as well as some online retailers. SalesMountain estimates that more than 250,000 store locations are included in its database belonging to more than 17,500 different retailers covering all 50 states and 95% of all U.S. ZIP codes. At any given time, more than 60,000 merchandise items are listed in the database.
Piercing Pagoda, which sells jewelry at more than 900 stores nationwide, said it has been served well by SalesMountain.
“We were looking for a tool to drive traffic to the Web site, and we found one that would benefit our stores as well,” said Linda Heydt, Piercing Pagoda’s marketing manager. According to data being kept by the company, consumers are buying online and at stores after finding Piercing Pagoda through SalesMountain. The company has a loyalty service, called Jewelry Club, and customers in that program are buying online and through the stores. When customers are asked how they arrive at Piercing Pagoda’s Web site, SalesMountain.com is always one of the top five sources, Heydt said.
When a user concludes a search, the list provides links to retailers’ Web sites where they can make a purchase or obtain information on the closest store location. SalesMountain.com also gives retailers the option of producing Internet coupons that shoppers can use when making online purchases or that they can print out for use at brick-and-mortar stores.
Retailers can upload information to SalesMountain.com via the Web, phone or fax. They also can conduct regional campaigns by, for instance, limiting discounts to certain ZIP codes. Retailers are currently limited to posting up to 60 merchandise items per month (although there are no limits on the number of store locations they can list). The fees retailers pay for the service vary based on how many items are listed and the number of stores they have.
SalesMountain tracks its usage and measures sales based on user behavior on the site. The company monitors how many times ads are viewed, how often specific users visit specific retailers and other aspects of online behavior.
SalesMountain also provides a personal shopper service called SalesGenie, which can perform searches on behalf of users even when they are not logged on to the site. Users register on the site, post their requests, and the SalesGenie then conducts periodic searches as SalesMountain’s database is updated, sending an e-mail message if a new item in the database matches the query. Such messages can also be sent to cellular phones or other wireless devices with messaging capabilities.
Another service SalesMountain offers is a search-by-phone option called Sales Finder. Users can call the company’s hot line with requests for a product or service, and the operator searches the database for them.
In recent months, SalesMountain has formed a number of strategic alliances with telecommunications companies, including AT&T Wireless Services, to expand its wireless messaging capabilities. It also formed an alliance with Eversave.com, a Web site that gives users information about strip center tenants who could not afford to establish an online presence on their own. Eversave.com has a more comprehensive online coupon-producing service that SalesMountain gains access to in the deal.
Eversave executives say the companies’ technologies are a good match.
“Their commitment to providing shoppers with local savings fits well with our business model,” said Chris Cohen, vice president of business development at Eversave.com.
“In addition to our coupons, our members can now receive information about sales at local retailers.”
About one year ago, SalesMountain took its service overseas, launching sites in Germany and England.
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