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Samsclub.com adds Auction, Travel and Embroidery Services to Online Membership Warehouse Club

SAM'S CLUB'S online auction, powered by FairMarket, Inc., (Nasdaq:FAIM), features the traditional English and Dutch auction format enabling members to bid on a variety of quality merchandise, including electronics, home furnishings, sporting goods, furniture, jewelry and overstock items. In addition, the auction features a plunging prices department where prices are progressively marked down by SAM'S CLUB until the merchandise is sold.

New merchandise will be added to the auction weekly along with new category features, including overstocks, company assets and end-of-season merchandise. Distribution of auction and plunging prices items will be handled by McLane Company, Inc., a subsidiary of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., located in Temple, Texas.

McLane's distribution involvement is yet another example of the strategic advantage of samsclub.com to tap into its corporate resources to pass savings on to members.

Also unique to the site is SAM'S CLUB Travel, providing members vacation packages, hotel accommodations, rental cars and airline tickets. The online travel service, powered by Amadeus and managed by SAM'S CLUB Travel, is an extension of the popular travel offerings that have been available to members for the last 10 years.

Additionally, SAM'S CLUB has extended nationwide the reach and convenience of its embroidery service by adding it to the online roster. This service invites members to choose from a wide variety of apparel, including denim shirts, baseball hats, jackets, short sleeve polo style shirts, sweatshirts, long and short sleeve T-shirts and more. The site features an online stock garment catalog consisting of more than 5,000 graphics to choose from, as well as, the functionality to create a custom image and upload the custom image for a stitch-out sample approval process. The stitched custom image sample can either be approved via a digital sample that is emailed to the member or a stitched cloth sample that is mailed to the member.

Samsclub.com is the result of a partnership between SAM'S CLUB and Wal-Mart's information systems division to marry the bricks and mortar business with the Internet by leveraging the existing network of SAM'S CLUBS' nationwide.

SAM'S CLUB, with 2000 sales of more than $26 billion, is the largest membership warehouse club in the United States with more than 470 clubs and more than 41 million cardholders. SAM'S CLUB is a division of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., (NYSE: WMT), the world's largest retailer with 2000 sales of more than $191 billion.

SOURCE: SAM'S CLUB March 12, 2001

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