FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
DIGITAL BOARDWALK LAUNCHES
ONLINE STORE FOR ETOYS USING NETSCAPE MERCHANT SYSTEM
Partnering With First Major
Online Toy Retailer, Digital Boardwalk Provides a
Total Commerce Solution
BEVERLY HILLS, CA, OCTOBER 6, 1997 —Digital
Boardwalk partnered with eToys, an idealab! company,
four months ago to develop an optimized online store
aiming to become the industry leader in retail toy
sales on the World Wide Web. Digital Boardwalk,
www.digitalboardwalk.com, offers a comprehensive
solution for companies wishing to conduct business on
the Internet, and was chosen by eToys to implement
their online strategy. Working with Netscape®
Merchant System software, developed by Actra, an
Internet commerce applications joint venture between
Netscape and GE Information Services (GEIS), Digital
Boardwalk engineers developed eToys’ extensive
search engine and advanced feature set.
eToys president & CEO, Toby Lenk commented,
“Digital Boardwalk provided invaluable guidance
in helping us create an effective online shopping
experience. Digital Boardwalk was able to add custom
enhancements to our online store and implement a
robust search engine.”
The eToys site, www.etoys.com, is the first online
shopping site of its kind offering products from top
toy vendors such as Mattel, BRIO, Fisher Price, and
many more—over 1000 brand name products are
currently available. The site allows a visitor to
conduct advanced searches by age, price range, type
of toy and brand of toy, then get extended
information on a particular product—including
safety information, a product picture and awards. The
site will be maintained on Digital Boardwalk’s
Digital Commerce Network™ comprised of
state-of-the-art Origin servers from Silicon
Graphics, with high speed redundant links to the
Internet. Transactions are enabled through an
encrypted SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Internet
connection.
Mark Biestman, VP Commercial Applications for
Actra, “Between Netscape and Actra there has
been an ongoing relationship with the Digital
Boardwalk team for over two years, and we are
confident in their ability to help make eToys a
unique and effective commerce enabled site. We are
pleased to add eToys to the list of online shopping
sites built on Netscape Merchant System including
REI, JC Penney, CBS Sportsline and Travelocity.”
Digital Boardwalk is a one-stop shop solution for
retailers and publishers wishing to profit from
Internet commerce. Digital Boardwalk works with
clients as partners, and their unique approach
tightly integrates business strategy, development,
technology and marketing. Digital Boardwalk is a
Netscape Commercial Application Partner, leveraging
over two years of experience working with the premier
electronic commerce software. The firm offers a
hosting option to its clients on Digital Boardwalk’s
Digital Commerce Network™ running Netscape
Commercial Applications on high performance Silicon
Graphics Origin servers.
For more information about Digital Boardwalk or
Netscape Merchant System, please contact William
Sears, Vice President, Technology & New Media
Development at (310) 288-3700 X227 or, william@digitalboardwalk.com.
For more information about eToys, please contact Phil
Polishook at (310) 576-6776. For more information
from Actra, developers of Netscape MerchantXpert, the
next generation of the Netscape Merchant System,
please contact Suzanne Burnip (408) 542-3181, sburnip@actracorp.com
or visit the website at http://www.actracorp.com.
©1997 Digital Boardwalk, Inc. Digital Boardwalk
and Digital Commerce Network are trademarks of
Digital Boardwalk, Inc. Netscape product names are
trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation
which may be registered in some jurisdictions. All
other trademarks are properties of their respective
owners
Founded in April 1996, Actra is a
joint venture between Netscape Communications
Corporation and GE Information Services (GEIS).
Benefiting from GEIS' market expertise as the world's
leading provider of business-to-business Internet
commerce services and Netscape's leading position in
developing and marketing software for the Internet,
Actra provides next-generation Internet commerce
applications solutions for both business-to-consumer
and business-to-business commerce markets.
Additionally, Actra is taking an active role in
promoting open standards for Internet commerce.
