AbeBooks Selects Endeca to Help Book Buyers Search and Browse World’s Largest Online Book Marketplace

Endeca InFront to Enhance Online Access to Over 50 Million Books Listed by Independent Sellers on AbeBooks.com

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., VICTORIA, BC, May 17, 2004 – Endeca, the leading provider of advanced search and Guided NavigationSM solutions, announced today that AbeBooks, the world’s largest online marketplace for books, has selected Endeca InFrontâ to power search and navigation across all of its international sites. Offering an unmatched collection of over 50 million new, used, rare and out-of-print titles, AbeBooks gives readers, collectors, students and treasure hunters access to more than 12,000 independent booksellers, worldwide. The new search and Guided Navigation solution was implemented in early 2004 and is now live on www.abebooks.com, www.abebooks.co.uk, www.abebooks.fr, and www.abebooks.de.

As the major book selling chains continue to improve and expand their online presence, Victoria, British Columbia-based AbeBooks helps independent booksellers improve their competitive position by listing their books online, and by providing management tools that help booksellers benefit from a low-cost, online sales channel. For book buyers, AbeBooks provides a truly unique experience, offering unprecedented quality, breadth and depth of titles, as well as access to specialty booksellers both locally and around the world.

AbeBooks selected Endeca InFront, the market-leading commerce and e-catalog search, navigation and merchandising platform, to overcome a fundamental e-commerce challenge: How to provide customers with quick access to an extremely large and diverse database of books, without overwhelming the user with uselessly long results lists. By leveraging Endeca’s integrated search and browsing approach, called Guided Navigation, search results are now presented in context, with dynamically generated navigational links that can be used to both hone results and explore related areas of interest. For example, users can now easily narrow results using criteria such as bookseller location, edition, signed copies, paperback, hard cover and more.

One of the most critical pieces of information for shoppers is the current availability of specific books. But with more than 12,000 independent booksellers contributing to the overall collection, keeping track of current inventory levels can be extremely difficult. To ensure bookbuyers receive the most relevant information possible when searching for books, AbeBooks is taking advantage of Endeca InFront’s rapid indexing capabilities to complement its own inventory system.

“AbeBooks exists to connect bookbuyers and booksellers online. Next-generation search is enhancing the customer search experience while improving browser-to-buyer conversion rates and boosting book sales for our sellers,” said Hannes Blum, president and CEO of AbeBooks. “Endeca is helping AbeBooks improve its overall search service and increase its value proposition by meeting the needs of buyers and sellers.”

Endeca InFront offers the most advanced, integrated search, navigation, and merchandising environment available online today. With Endeca InFront users are able to find what they are looking for and discover additional results of interest, while retailers benefit from a more robust, customizable, and easily-managed platform that provides the fastest time-to-market with almost instantaneous ROI. Powering the shopping experience and driving sales on more than 100 premier e-commerce storefronts, Endeca InFront is the search, navigation and merchandising solution of choice and recognized market leader among the world’s most popular retailers.

“AbeBooks offers a classic and compelling example of how to provide a superior customer experience to a diverse audience, with a wide variety of needs,” said Jim Baum, president and chief operating officer of Endeca. “By delivering a cost-effective solution that is both versatile and highly scalable, Endeca can help AbeBooks meet today’s most pressing needs, while providing them with a solid platform to both expand their business and continually offer new benefits to both buyers and sellers.”

About Endeca
Endeca offers innovative Endeca Search and Guided NavigationSM information delivery solutions for companies who need to integrate, discover, and navigate enterprise data to solve the business problems associated with information overload. Endeca technology, a winner of Computerworld’s 2003 Innovative Technology Award, is already at work for leading retail, financial services and business-to-business companies like Barnes & Noble, Putnam Investments, and Arrow Electronics. Endeca solutions empower users to explore and discover relevant relationships in data and find accurate and precise results with unprecedented speed. This search and navigation technology can be applied across a wide-range of enterprise and customer applications including Knowledge Management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), customer self-service, analytics, catalogs, directories, and portal integration. Endeca is a privately held company headquartered in Cambridge, MA. Endeca is an IBM Advanced Business Partner. For more information, visit www.endeca.com or contact us at info@endeca.com.

About AbeBooks
AbeBooks is the world’s largest online marketplace for books. AbeBooks makes it simple and safe to find and buy—or list and sell—books online. Bookbuyers love the variety of over 50 million new used, rare, and out-of-print books offered by more than 12,000 independent booksellers. Readers find bestsellers, collectors find rare books, students find textbooks, and treasure hunters find books they’ve been seeking forever. Booksellers love AbeBooks for providing tools to help them succeed online, including options for selling via strategic partners (Amazon, Barnes & Noble), and four sites to reach global markets (AbeBooks.com, AbeBooks.co.uk, AbeBooks.de, AbeBooks.fr).

AbeBooks is a private company based in Victoria, BC Canada, with offices in Düsseldorf, Germany. AbeBooks.com was named one of the top e-business sites at the UN World Summit Awards, 2003. As a company, AbeBooks is changing how books are found, sold, and shared with the world.

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Contacts

Richard Davies, PR & Publicity Mgr., AbeBooks.com
Ph: 250-412-3238
rdavies@abebooks.com

Craig VerColen, Endeca
617-577-7999
cvercolen@endeca.com