American Greetings signs pact to buy Webshots

Drug Store News,  Nov 12, 2007  

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CLEVELAND -- American Greetings is making a bigger push into e-commerce with its purchase of Webshots, an online photo- and video-sharing Web site. American Greetings chief executive officer Zev Weiss said the $45 million deal announced on Oct. 25 would give the company a vehicle to leverage its greeting card business and related ventures online.

"The acquisition of Webshots gives us the opportunity to expand our current product offering of online social expressions into the adjacent area of online photo sharing," Weiss said. "The online photo market has grown dramatically over the past few years as consumers purchase and use digital cameras and look for ways to incorporate their photos on personalized products, including greeting cards."

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Webshots allows users to share photos, order prints and make gifts and cards using their own photos. The Nielsen Company estimates that Webshots receives 7 million unique visitors each month and has more than 400 million photos stored on it.

Joseph Mandelbaum, chief executive officer of AG Intellectual Properties, described the deal as a "natural extension of our interactive business, which already is a leading provider of social expression content."

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