Hosting Company Digital River Launches E-Commerce Operations for Manhattan Toy

anonymous writes "MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 8, 2004--Digital River, Inc. (Nasdaq:DRIV), a global leader in e-commerce outsourcing, today announced that it signed an agreement with Minneapolis-based Manhattan Toy, one of the industry's leading makers of innovative, high-quality gifts for children. Based on the agreement, Digital River built and recently launched Manhattan Toy's online store, located at www.manhattantoy.com, to support the sales of its children's toys and gifts. Digital River not only hosts the specialty retailer's site, but also provides order management, product fulfillment, customer service, e-marketing and fraud prevention screening.

"With the growing popularity of the Internet, an increasing number of traditional brick-and-mortars are recognizing the importance of multi-channel sales models," said Joel Ronning, Digital River's CEO. "An online e-commerce strategy that is successfully integrated with an offline sales strategy can satisfy the shopping needs of a wide variety of Internet customers, ranging from novice to experienced buyers. Working with tens of thousands of clients over the past ten years, Digital River has developed the e-commerce and e-marketing best practices to meet this market demand."

Manhattan Toy's e-commerce site features the company's lines of children's toys, including Manhattan Toy(R), Groovy Girls(R), Whoozit(R), Manhattan Baby(TM) and Dr. Seuss(TM). The site, which is designed to reflect Manhattan Toy's brand, represents the company's first direct-to-consumer online initiative.

"We outsourced our e-commerce operations to Digital River because of the company's demonstrated e-commerce expertise and its world-class platform," said Mike Klein, Manhattan Toy's vice president of sales development. "Today's Internet savvy consumers are increasingly looking for multi-channel purchase alternatives. Digital River is helping us address these expectations and raise the bar on customer satisfaction. Through our new e-commerce site, we can offer our clients all the conveniences of 24X7 shopping and the flexibility of integrated offline and online buying experiences."

About Manhattan Toy

Manhattan Toy is dedicated to the art of creative play, quality craftsmanship and the success of the specialty retailer. It distributes its products through more than 11,000 specialty stores worldwide. For more information on its collections, visit www.manhattantoy.com.

About Digital River, Inc.

Digital River, Inc., a global leader in e-commerce outsourcing, builds and manages online businesses for nearly 34,000 companies worldwide. Its e-commerce solution and infrastructure are designed to help companies of all sizes maximize online revenues as well as cut the costs and reduce the risks associated with running an e-commerce operation. The Digital River(R) international e-commerce suite includes site development and hosting, order management, fraud prevention, site merchandising, reporting and analytics, product fulfillment, e-marketing and multi-lingual customer service. Digital River's clients include 3M, ACT!, Autodesk, H&R Block, Motorola, Novell, Staples.com and Symantec.

Founded in 1994, Digital River is headquartered in Minneapolis with offices throughout the United States and in Europe. For more details about Digital River, visit the corporate Web site at www.digitalriver.com or call 952-253-1234.

Digital River is a registered trademark of Digital River, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks, registrations or copyrights of their respective owners."