Virgin Wines Successfully Upgrades to Latest Version of Escalate Retail's Blue Martini Commerce Suite

Business Wire,  July 15, 2008  

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SAN DIEGO -- Escalate Retail today announced that Virgin Wines, the UK online wine retailer which offers boutique wines at supermarket prices, has successfully upgraded to the latest version of its Blue Martini Commerce Suite.

Virgin Wines became Escalate Retail's first European customer when it launched its website in 2000 using the Blue Martini platform. The wine retailer has experienced considerable online growth over the past year, which was the motivating factor behind the upgrade to an e-Commerce suite with additional functionalities.

Blue Martini's Relationship Marketing Engine, a highly comprehensive customer interaction tool, will enable the retailer to become the first wine website in the world with the sophisticated capability to recommend wines to customers based on individual preferences. The Data Mining and Contact Centre tools will assist with automating emails and reports, while the Product Feed feature will enable Virgin Wines to send customized feeds of its products to partners' websites to stay up-to-date with real-time information.

"Our experience with Blue Martini in the last several years has been very positive, and the new features we've implemented have enabled us to do exciting things with our website, most notably our intelligent wine recommendation tool for customers," said Derek Hardy, IT Director, Virgin Wines. "Escalate Retail has been a valuable technology partner that has allowed us to keep the focus on our customers and seamlessly manage the content on our website."

"Virgin Wines is an excellent model of how Blue Martini's robust functionality can fuel a highly interactive e-Commerce site focused on the customer experience," said Rich Harmatiuk, VP and General Manager, Escalate Retail. "It is rewarding to see how Escalate and our Blue Martini Commerce Suite have enabled Virgin Wines' continued success and innovation."

About Virgin Wines

Virgin Wines is Europe's largest independent online wine retailer, with over 500,000 customers. Launched in 2000 in the UK, Virgin Wines specializes in sourcing boutique quality wines direct from small, independent winemakers and selling them at the same price as mass-produced supermarket wine. Virgin Wines sells one bottle of wine to customers every six seconds and since its launch has encouraged its customers to feedback over 100,000 wine ratings. The company focuses on finding the stars of tomorrow and in the last 12 months has introduced 16 winemakers and 56 new wines to the UK. For more information, visit www.virginwines.com

About Escalate Retail

Escalate Retail software solutions are behind the scenes at many of the leading customer-focused retail organizations. Escalate products help over 650 retailers simplify the challenge of cross channel commerce, in the store, on the web, and over the phone, turning valuable customer insights into actions that drive sustainable loyalty and repeat business by creating passionate customers. The company maintains headquarters in San Diego, CA with five additional offices located across North America and Europe. For more information, visit www.EscalateRetail.com.

Escalate Retail, Blue Martini and the Escalate Retail logo are trademarks of Escalate, Inc.

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