ShopLocal.com Marks First Anniversary With 1.8 Million Site Visits

Web-to-Store Site Continues Dominance As Most Popular Online Destination For Offline Shopping

CHICAGO, August 1, 2005 - ShopLocal.com, the leader in online shopping information and the leading provider of Web-to-store marketing solutions for retailers, reached the milestone of 1.8 million traffic visits in July 2005. Just one year after the site launch in August 2004, ShopLocal has grown 640 percent, from an average of 9,000 visitors to more than 58,000 visitors per day, making it the most popular site in the online to offline shopping information category.

Among shopping directories in the multi-category commerce grouping, ShopLocal.com is now the 12th largest multi-category shopping site, placing it in company with Yahoo Shopping, BizRate, MSN Shopping, and other Internet pioneers. (Source: Nielsen//NetRatings).

"The growth of our network, including our media company partners and recent affiliates Washingtonpost.com and Boston.com, continues to deliver for retailers," says ShopLocal CEO Brian Hand. "And in the coming months, improvements to our site will further establish ShopLocal.com as the online destination for those looking to shop offline."

ShopLocal.com uses a geo-targeted search engine to help the roughly 84 million shoppers who use the Internet to gather pre-purchase information before they shop at local retailers. Shoppers can search by product or store within a specific zip-code radius to find deals at major chains as well as independent businesses. Categories include apparel, furniture, home improvement, automotive, home office, health and beauty, electronics, and more.

Along with the significant traffic increase, ShopLocal continues to partner with hundreds of small and mid-sized retailers, running nearly 6,000 unique ads for local businesses on ShopLocal.com in July alone. This effort will provide consumers with the most complete picture of sales and promotions available anywhere, from national chains to independent businesses.

"On any given day, a market like Dallas-Ft. Worth will see messages from dozens of their local advertisers. No one can compete with the accuracy, depth, and breadth of our content," says Hand.

A History of Helping Retailers Move Online

While August marks the one-year anniversary of the ShopLocal.com site, ShopLocal the company has been on the front lines of online shopping and local search for more than six years. In 1999, CEO Brian Hand had an idea that was ahead of its time-to bring retailers' promotional content online to a searchable Web site. Traditional retailers were still figuring out how the Web fit into their marketing strategies, so ShopLocal re-invented itself and began digitizing local sales info and catalogs for big companies like Sears, one of its earliest clients.

But as retailers began seeing the benefits of multi-channel marketing, Hand steered ShopLocal back to its original concept. And when the Tribune Company, Gannett, and Knight Ridder purchased ShopLocal last year, the company already had access to the promotional content it created and hosted on behalf of hundreds of retailers.

"Things have come full-circle," says Hand. "The rest of the world has caught up, but we've always been focused on the power of local shopping."

About ShopLocal, LLC

ShopLocal is the leading provider of Web-to-store services for retailers and other local businesses. ShopLocal.com helps retailers connect with 84 million consumers who use the Internet each year to research what they want to buy before they go to the store. (Source: 2005 Web-to-Store Benchmark Survey, The Dieringer Group.) Retailers use ShopLocal to take advantage of the convenience and efficiency of the Internet to distribute sales and promotional content through their own Web sites, offering a localized experience for their customers through its SmartCircular and Smart Catalog services. The ShopLocal Network, consisting of ShopLocal.com and 200 leading media, search and shopping Web sites, provides retailers with access to a dynamic, geographically-based marketplace of ready-to-buy shoppers looking to purchase items from t-shirts to televisions, and food to furniture at a store near them. Retailers benefit from ShopLocal's DataPoint services, the most complete Web-to-store tracking information available, providing retailers with the understanding necessary to make each Web-to-store effort more successful. Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI), Tribune Company (NYSE:TRB), and Knight Ridder, Inc. (NYSE:KRI), are partners in ShopLocal and other joint ventures to provide consumers online products such as CareerBuilder.com, Cars.com and Apartments.com.