ASI® Integrates Shopping Engine Relied Upon by Circuit City®, Home Depot® and Walmart.com® into its 6,500 LogoMall® Websites

TREVOSE, PA – Dec. 16, 2005 – Advertising Specialty Institute^®, the largest media organization serving the promotional products industry, announced today it has integrated a shopping engine relied upon by Circuit City, Home Depot and Walmart.com into its 6,500 LogoMall Websites.

LogoMall is used by ASI distributor firms and ASI supplier firms to market over 300,000 promotional products to buyers online.  The new shopping engine provides an easy-to-use navigation system, an intuitive product finder for detailed product results, and suggests similar item categories to generate ideas and increase sales leads. 

Among the features of the shopping engine, the most impressive perhaps is the navigation system.  The system groups products into multiple categories, driven by the results provided by the keyword product finder.  These categories drill-down through the results and display related items that generate ideas for what the client needs and possibly for other campaigns as well. 

“This is the first shopping engine of its kind in the promotional products industry,” said Timothy M. Andrews, president of ASI.  “ASI has invested in this world-class technology to help customers and prospects find products faster, provide them with more relevant results and to increase the number of leads produced by LogoMall Websites.  All current subscribers and new clients receive the engine.”

Reactions from promotional products companies have been positive.  Rose Virnig, vice president of sales for American Solutions for Business (asi/120075), said “I’ve been selling promotional products for twenty years, and I’ve witnessed in recent times that our clients are becoming more accustomed to shopping online.  LogoMall has been a great resource, and the new shopping engine will make it even easier for them to find exactly what they need.  I know the rest of the American Solutions for Business sales team will also benefit from this exciting technology.”  

Linda Hiniker, national account manager for Carlson Craft (asi/43920), said “I think this new shopping engine will help all of us to sell deeper and more products will be sold than is originally expected.  It will certainly enhance the overall online shopping experience and, in turn, suppliers will benefit from the increased exposure to more varieties of their products.  Sales will likely grow as a result.”

Betsy Griest, sales manager for JR Advertising Specialties (asi/232630), said “As a medium-size distributor firm, we’ve relied upon LogoMall to increase exposure for us for several years now.  The addition of the shopping engine, with its ability to group similar products together, and with its advanced navigational tools, will be a real benefit for our customers.  It’s awesome.”

Pam Greene, director of marketing for POP Solutions Group (asi/359180), said “I look forward to having our clients use the enhanced LogoMall.  We’re anxious to see our sales improve with the addition of the shopping engine.  It looks to be a very useful tool.”     

ASI supplier member firms and ASI distributor member firms will be enjoying the enhanced exposure for their products and increased sales leads, as more customers find it easier to quickly select products they want and begin taking advantage of the additional product categories and marketing ideas created by the shopping engine.

To view a demo highlighting the powerful abilities of the shopping engine, visit www.uat-asicentral.com/shoplogomall.  For more information about LogoMall, visitwww.uat-asicentral.com/getlogomall and complete the form, or call Karyn Coates, director of ASInternet, at 800-546-1350.  

About ASI
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media organization serving the promotional products industry, with a membership of 21,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of promotional products.  Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to more than 18,000 ASI distributor firms.  Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain more than 750,000 promotional products, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers.  ASI provides catalogs, informational directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers interactive e-commerce, marketing and selling tools.  Visit www.uat-asicentral.com.