Webloyalty expands its operations with launch in France

LONDON, 23 September 2008 - Webloyalty, a leading provider of incremental revenue for e-businesses, today announced its expansion into France. The company, headquartered in the US, launched in the UK in 2007 with its online rewards, savings and protection programme, Shopper Discounts & Rewards.

As with Webloyalty in the UK and US, WL France SAS will provide solutions for e-commerce sites operating in France to leverage their existing business models to generate additional revenue. In France the online rewards programme will launch under the name ‘Remises & Réductions’.

Leading the team from the new offices in Paris will be Andrew Buckman, managing director. Buckman was formerly Yahoo! monetisation director for Europe, where he worked for five years.

“French e-commerce sales grew 34 percent from 2006 to 2007 according to ACSEL, the French e-commerce association. I think 2008 to 2009 will be a really important time for e-commerce in France and now is exactly the right time to be expanding the reach into this territory.” says Buckman

“We have demonstrated the Shopper Discounts & Rewards model works well in the UK and have seen a steady increase in customer and member acquisition,” says Martin Child, managing director Europe, Webloyalty. “We are now ready to build on this success and expand our reach into France.”

Consumers shopping online with Webloyalty clients in France have the option to join the ‘Remises & Réductions’ membership programme that offers cash back discounts of up to 35 percent off online purchases. Programme members can receive discounts from French retailers such as Décathlon (http://fr.decathlon.com), 3suisses (http://www.3suisses.fr) and Surcouf (http://www.surcouf.com) and other popular e-tail sites.

According to INSEE (French national institute for statistics), for several years e-commerce websites have had rather low profit levels with an average of 1.5% for specialised retail companies. Online retailers are now seeking to generate additional revenue from customer visits to their websites. Their objective is to expand their "sales platform" as well as to increase revenue, opening doors to additional sales, crossover sales and other partnerships.

Forrester Research analyst Victoria Bracewell Lewis, European e-commerce analyst, stated the following in her report entitled, “Trends 2008: European eCommerce and Online Retail” (January 2008), “The real riches to be gained in Europe are straightforward – surging numbers of consumers will continue to go shopping online for everything. For those retailers and consumer product brands that focus their efforts on improving their e-commerce presence across all channels in 2008, the payoff will be immediate. Online retailers and consumer product brands that augment and enhance site functionality, provide real-time transparent inventory and offer a wide variety of shipping and payment options will be the big winners in 2008.”

A team of nine people will support the launch of Webloaylty France SAS, based at an office in Paris. In addition, customer services for the French office will be supported from Webloyalty’s Sevenoaks-based Customer Contact Centre. The centre has dedicated native French speaking agents.

Webloyalty brings a new revenue model to the online high street, enabling retailers and travel companies to monetise their websites. It provides e-commerce benefits to clients by providing the potential to increase their e-business revenue.