Beliefnet.com Teams With Vcommerce to Launch the World's Largest Online Store for Religious and Spiritual Products, Gifts and Services.Business/Technology Editors STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 19, 2000 Multi-faith community site to offer full-scale shopping operation with more than 100,000 products Beliefnet.com (www.beliefnet.com), the premier multi-faith destination for religion, spirituality and morality, today announced the launch of the largest online shopping service for religious and spiritual products in the world. With more than 100,000 products, gifts and services across a wide range of major categories, Beliefnet.com now offers users a unique shopping experience through a partnership with Vcommerce Corporation, (www.vcommerce.com), the leading outsourced e-commerce provider on the Web. The Beliefnet Store will cater to the $40 billion dollar spiritual marketplace, allowing Beliefnet to meet the diverse spiritual needs of this community with customized products and services that draw from Vcommerce's extensive partnerships and broad product catalog. Items for sale at the Beliefnet Store fall into a number of categories including products related to religion, spirituality, life events and inspiration. Examples of products included in each category are: -- Religion: Music, books and jewelry/icons reflecting a variety of faiths -- Spirituality: New Age and classical music, celestial ce·les·tial adj. 1. Of or relating to the sky or the heavens: Planets are celestial bodies. 2. Of or relating to heaven; divine: celestial beings. 3. candles and inspirational books -- Life events: Wedding scrapbooks, engraved en·grave tr.v. en·graved, en·grav·ing, en·graves 1. To carve, cut, or etch into a material: engraved the champion's name on the trophy. 2. silver champagne flutes, as well as flowers, jewelry jewelry, personal adornments worn for ornament or utility, to show rank or wealth, or to follow superstitious custom or fashion. The most universal forms of jewelry are the necklace, bracelet, ring, pin, and earring. and fruit baskets to commemorate weddings, baby showers A baby shower is a party in which expectant parents receive gifts for their expected or born child. By convention, a baby shower is intended to help parents get items that they need for their baby, such as baby clothes. and anniversaries -- Inspiration: Books and videos, career and family, advice, devotionals, prayer books and journals "Beliefnet is all about information, inspiration, community applications, as well as products and services to meet your spiritual needs. Religious and spiritual products and services are a natural and valuable part of people's spiritual lives, as is evident by the extraordinary affinity purchasing statistics in the category," says Tony Uphoff, president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Beliefnet.com. "The expansion of the Beliefnet Store allows us to meet the needs of our customers around the world, with the broadest and deepest array of products available anywhere," he added. Under the terms of the agreement, Vcommerce will provide Beliefnet with a customized store that will offer spiritual-themed items from its extensive supplier network, incorporating thousands of product categories. Vcommerce's partnerships and expansive offerings will further Beliefnet's mission of bringing spirituality, wellness and inspiration to its growing community of users. "This is one of the most exciting examples of leveraging our product catalog and e-commerce infrastructure for a unique content, community and commerce site," said Scot Melland, president and CEO of Vcommerce. "Beliefnet's powerful affinity and strong sense of community will make it an extremely successful content and commerce-driven site. We are thrilled to help them achieve this goal." Beliefnet had been using an affiliate program for e-commerce by providing links to sites like Amazon.com and Mothernature.com. However, their new strategy will center on the merchandised custom store built by Vcommerce. Vcommerce will handle all hosting, transactions, order fulfillment Order fulfillment (in BE also: order fulfilment) is in the most general sense the complete process from point of sales inquiry to delivery of a product to the customer. Sometimes Order fulfillment and customer service, while assisting in merchandising and marketing programs for the storefront. "It was important for us to have a focused e-commerce initiative. Vcommerce allowed us to create a store that was branded to match our site and merchandised specifically for our customer's spiritual needs," says Vice President of Commerce for Beliefnet.com, Jose Perez. "Rather than pushing our users to other online retailers, our affiliation with Vcommerce allows us to provide them with a customized store on our existing site." About Beliefnet.com Beliefnet is the leading online destination for religion, spirituality and morality. Beliefnet provides an open forum to explore, debate, question, and share ideas or issues that span the spectrum of religious beliefs. As a multi-faith community, Beliefnet provides individuals with an inclusive environment of content offered by notable theologians and thinkers, community features like prayer circles and memorials, and commerce that facilitates integrating spirituality into their daily lives. About Vcommerce Corporation Vcommerce Corporation is the leading outsourced e-commerce solution on the Web, providing companies a comprehensive and scalable end-to-end infrastructure that seamlessly and quickly integrates e-commerce into their existing businesses. Today, Vcommerce connects its commerce partners to the most extensive supplier network on the Web, incorporating more than 1 million products across thousands of product categories, including name brand products like Disney, RCA See RCA connector and video/TV history. , Mattel, Coleman and many others. Traffic generated by Vcommerce partners places the network among the top 100 e-commerce sites, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Media Metrix. In its June issue, UPSIDE Upside The potential dollar amount by which the market or a stock could rise. Notes: This is basically an educated guess on how high a stock could go in the near future. See also: Bull, Downside magazine designated Vcommerce one of the industry's Hot 100 private companies. Vcommerce has built custom solutions for About.com, iBelong.com, MyFamily.com, NeoPlanet and many others. Vcommerce Corporation provides all hosting, transaction processing Updating the appropriate database records as soon as a transaction (order, payment, etc.) is entered into the computer. It may also imply that confirmations are sent at the same time. Transaction processing systems are the backbone of an organization because they update constantly. , customer service, order fulfillment and the merchandising and marketing programs to power successful online retailers. A privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. , Vcommerce is funded by Archery archery, sport of shooting with bow and arrow, an important military and hunting skill before the introduction of gunpowder. England's Charles II fostered archery as sport, establishing in 1673 the world's oldest continuous archery tournament, the Ancient Scorton Capital, Benchmark Capital Benchmark Capital is a venture capital firm responsible for the early stage funding of some very successful startups, including eBay. In 1995, the firm invested $6.7 million in eBay, which became worth more than $5 billion by the spring of 1999 and resulted in one of Silicon , CMGI CMGI Commonly Maintained Grounds Infrastructures CMGI College Marketing Group Information (Services) @Ventures and Pequot Capital Management. For more information, visit www.vcommerce.com. |
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