Overstock.com® Stocks Up on Oracle® CRM and Oracle Fusion Middleware

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Overstock.com® Stocks Up on Oracle® CRM and Oracle Fusion Middleware

Online Retailer Standardizes on Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle CRM service applications to Help Increase Sales Opportunities

Redwood Shores, Calif. 08-AUG-2005 11:00 AM Overstock.com(r), one of the world's largest and fastest-growing online retailers, announced it is standardizing on Oracle(r) CRM applications and Oracle Fusion Middleware. The company will use Oracle Fusion Middleware to integrate business applications and standardize on Oracle CRM's Service applications for its entire support staff. Overstock.com opted for Oracle's customer service solution over competing offerings from Kana, RightNow Technologies, Salesforce.com and Siebel Systems.

"Given Oracle Database has already helped us address critical data management challenges, Oracle Fusion Middleware was a natural option to create a technology infrastructure that enables us to focus on our customers," said Shawn Schwegman, senior vice president, Technology, Overstock.com. "We chose Oracle CRM because of its information-driven approach to service. Leveraging customer data across the phone, Web and email contacts earns loyalty by providing a consistent, personalized experience for our customers."

Previously, Overstock.com operated four different front-end systems, each containing customer data captured by its shopping, auction and travel Web sites. Because the systems were not integrated, Overstock.com had limited cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Overstock.com implemented a more scaleable and unified approach by investing in Oracle Fusion Middleware-including Oracle Customer Data Hub, Oracle Application Server and Oracle BPEL Process Manager-coupled with a data warehouse. Together, these technologies enable the company to consolidate siloed data and get a holistic view of its customers, all while helping decrease IT management costs.

Leveraging Customer Information to Reduce Support Costs
Since its launch in October 1999, Overstock.com has grown rapidly by saving consumers millions of dollars off manufacturers' suggested retail prices. As the company's revenue grew to half a billion dollars in the past year, they found that its in-house service applications could not scale up to match the rising volume of customer calls.

"We chose Oracle CRM's Service applications to help increase customer satisfaction while we drive down cost," said Schwegman. "We can offer our customers convenient Web and email self-service options that reduce our call volume, plus we can resolve issues faster when customers do call us. That means shorter hold times, happier customers and ultimately lower prices. Everybody wins."

Overstock.com will use Oracle TeleService, a contact center application, to automate its entire issue resolution process. Whether requests come in by phone, email or the Web, the system can route them to the most qualified agent. Oracle's information-driven approach to customer service gives the agent a complete history of previous service interactions through any contact channel. Oracle Email Center, an e-mail response management system, will manage Overstock.com's high volumes of incoming messages. Oracle Email Center can reduce response time by intelligently classifying and routing incoming e-mails and suggesting appropriate responses to agents.

To reduce incoming call volume and provide 24-7 self-service to customers and employees, Overstock.com will implement Oracle iSupport and a knowledge base. Customers can use a secure Web portal to solve technical problems, manage product configurations and track orders, payments, shipments and returns. Overstock.com's rollout also includes Oracle Interaction Center, to provide synchronized multi-channel communication for customer service contact centers and to help guide agents to provide consistent service inquiries through interactive call scripting.

Single Platform Benefits
Leveraging consultants, solutions specialists and architects, Oracle used a proof of concept to educate Overstock.com's management and development groups about the value of Grid centric service oriented architecture and a full Oracle infrastructure. Overstock.com's preference to work with a single platform, leverage existing skill sets and more rapidly implement new solutions led the company to select Oracle Fusion Middleware. The company was already using elements of Oracle's Grid technology platform - specifically, Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Real Application Clusters - to power its business.

Overstock.com also selected Oracle JDeveloper 10g as its development tool of choice to meet a company mandate that all new application development be based on J2EE. J2EE offers the increased scalability, flexibility and high performance essential to the company's rapidly growing technology infrastructure. After evaluating numerous solutions, Overstock.com chose Oracle.

About Overstock.com
Overstock.com, Inc. is an online "closeout" retailer offering discount, brand-name merchandise for sale over the Internet. The company offers its customers an opportunity to shop for bargains conveniently, while offering its suppliers an alternative inventory liquidation distribution channel. Overstock.com, headquartered in Salt Lake City, is a publicly traded company listed on the NASDAQ National Market System and can be found online at http://www.overstock.com.

About Oracle Fusion Middleware
Oracle Fusion Middleware is a family of proven middleware products that help organizations achieve greater agility, make better-informed business decisions and more easily integrate data and processes across disparate IT systems - including technologies from Oracle and other vendors. Oracle Fusion Middleware features Oracle Application Server 10g, related Oracle Application Server products and options, Oracle Data Hubs and Oracle Collaboration Suite. These products are available today and are being used by thousands of customers and partners throughout the world. Additional information can be found at www.oracle.com/middleware.

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at www.oracle.com