Answerthink Announces Top Shop Awards For Excellence in Web Customer Care; Eddie Bauer Takes Home Top Honors; eToys, Coldwater Creek and Gap Kids Also Win Accolades.

Business/High Tech Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 16, 2002

Answerthink, Inc. (Nasdaq:ANSR), a leading provider of technology-enabled business transformation solutions, announced today the winners of its Top Shop Awards recognizing the best consumer shopping websites.

Eddie Bauer received two awards, including Best of Show for its highest ratings across all assessment categories and Best User Experience.

The Top Shop Awards are the first of their kind to assess sites for excellence in web customer care. Consultants from Answerthink's Retail Solutions Group evaluated two hundred consumer shopping Internet sites in November and December 2001 to determine best practices and industry trends. Awards were given to the top performers evaluated in these areas -- ease of shopping, ease of ordering, ease or order processing, delivery and return experience, and ability to create an ongoing relationship with the customer.

The Best Online Shop and Best Customer Experience -- Eddie Bauer

"Eddie Bauer's site is hands down the most consumer friendly site on the web today," said Ken Goldberg, Managing Director of Answerthink's Retail Solutions Group. "Eddie Bauer offers the best customer experience -- and offers shoppers an experience that is totally consistent with its stores and catalog."

Eddie Bauer, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Spiegel Group best demonstrated the ability to

-- manage each customer interaction with professionalism;

-- maintain customer intimacy throughout the relationship life cycle of
ordering, delivery and return, and

-- provide the customer with a consistent shopping experience regardless of how
and when the customer shops with the company.

"We're thrilled to be given this award by Answerthink," said Sally McKenzie, DVP of e-commerce for Eddie Bauer. "It's always great to be acknowledged for the work and commitment we have to providing our customers with the best possible online shopping experience."

Best Content Management -- eToys

Good content management was key to success this year with customers. Product descriptions are more thorough and there has been significant improvement in advanced searches. eToys earned Answerthink's recognition for best content management, as it best demonstrated the ability to emulate brick-and-mortar information services for sales, marketing, and customer services.

Best Delivery and Returns -- Coldwater Creek

"No matter how good the user experience is on a shopping website, if the delivery and return experience is poor, the customer won't come back to the site, and the whole retailing enterprise will be in peril. Coldwater Creek's fulfillment and handling of returns is superlative, a real standard-setter for online shopping," said Answerthink's Ken Goldberg.

Coldwater Creek's ability to provide each customer with consistent, reliable, and enhanced fulfillment and merchandise return experiences led Answerthink to name it the best in delivery and return.

Most Improved -- Gap Kids

Comparing site evaluations from 1999 and 2000, Answerthink commended Gap Kids as the most improved shopping site of the year. In the past year, the Gap Kids site made significant strides forward in providing excellent customer care, while others rested on their laurels -- not keeping up and improving the customer's experience as the technology advances.

Top Shop Awards Methodology

Two hundred online retailers -- a representative mix of pure-play online stores, catalog-based companies, and bricks-and-mortar retailers -- were each shopped twice, once in November and once in December 2001 by retail professionals, at Answerthink. Items were selected and purchased; delivery was document, and the items were returned. The first shopping at each site was in mid-November; the second shopping at each site was on the date specified on the site as the last date that guaranteed Christmas delivery. All steps along the process were scored according to a methodology developed in 1999, the first time Answerthink assessed online stores for its annual Holiday Web Shopping Survey.

Answerthink, Inc.

Answerthink, Inc. (www.Answerthink.com) is a leading provider of technology-enabled business transformation solutions. The company brings together multi-disciplinary expertise in benchmarking and research, business transformation, interactive marketing, business applications and technology integration to serve the needs of Global 2000 clients. Answerthink's solutions span all functional areas of a company including finance, human resources, information technology, sales, marketing, customer service, and supply chain, as well as across a variety of industry sectors. Founded in 1997, Answerthink has more than 1,300 associates and offices in 17 cities throughout the United States and Europe.

Certain statements in this press release are "forward looking Statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward looking statements. Factors that impact such forward looking statements include the ability of the Company to attract additional business, changes in expectations regarding the information technology industry, the ability of the Company to attract skilled employees, possible changes in collections of accounts receivable risks of competition, price and margin trends, changes in general economic conditions and interest rates as well as other risks detailed in the Company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.