C2B Signs Exclusive Pact With Consumers Digest

C2B Technologies based in San Mateo, CA said it has signed an exclusive, three-year agreement with Consumers Digest, a provider of consumer-product advice and analysis.

Editorial, shopping tips and detailed comparisons from Consumers Digest will be available through C2B’s online shopping platform.

C2B also signed deals with DejaNews and Delphi Forums to provide community
information to consumers. The three deals “will enable consumers to make
informed, confident purchases on C2B’s online-shopping service with advice
from industry experts and the opinions of fellow consumers,” the company said.
Financial arrangements for the various agreements were not disclosed.

“Consumers Digest is the ideal consumer-brand partner for us, with 1.3-million
magazine subscribers, and 35 years of brand value behind it,” said Scott
Walchek, CEO and co-founder of C2B Technologies. “These deals enable us to
elevate online shopping beyond price wars, to engage consumers with the most
complete product information and comparisons available on the Web.”

Consumers Digest will supply detailed information and Best Buy ratings on
thousands of products, including appliances, home electronics, home-and-
garden,
health-and-fitness, and automotive. Product and feature descriptions,
analyses, comparisons and shopping tips from Consumers Digest will be
incorporated into C2B’s product guide, which includes relevance-ranking and
side-by-side product comparison tools.

C2B will also integrate community content through DejaNews’ 75,000 discussion
forums, including Usenet newsgroups, and Delphi Forums’ discussion forums on
over 70,000 topics. Consumers will be able to search and access consumer
commentary
from within C2B’s shopping service to get unbiased, experiential information
and opinions on products from fellow consumers.

C2B’s private-labeled online-shopping platform debuted a month ago. The C2B
shopping platform offers products in nearly a dozen categories, and includes
more than 200 online merchants. Distribution tops 21 million aggregated
visitors each month, with partners such as CNNfn, WhoWhere/AngelFire,
Mastercard International and LookSmart., the company said.