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Planet Payment Launches Glocalizer™ to Help U.S. E-Businesses Increase Foreign Sales

Planet Payment (www.planetpayment.com), a provider of multi-currency payment solutions, has launched Glocalizer™, a product that is specifically designed to help U.S. e-merchants increase sales to foreign markets. 

The Glocalizer allows Internet customers around the world to both view prices and pay for goods in any of more than 130 local currencies. The product is initially being introduced to a select group of U.S. based e-merchants in conjunction with Authorize.Net, a subsidiary of InfoSpace (NASDAQ-INSP) and a leading provider of Internet-based transaction services. 

While the websites of US merchants remain technically accessible to foreign customers, these e-merchants have largely failed to specifically market to foreign customers, thereby missing the real opportunity for increased sales to these markets. In fact, only a meager 37% of Fortune 100 companies have created anything remotely considered "localized" content, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. 

The launch of the Glocalizer comes on the heels of a number of studies showing growing international composition of the Internet, illustrating the need for e-merchants to provide localized content in order to increase sales. For example, according to Computer Economics, by 2005, more than 60% of Internet users will not be English speakers. 

Furthermore, a recent study by Forrester Research indicated that people are three times more likely to complete a transaction if they were offered the product in their own language rather than in English. 

Launch Timed to Prepare American Merchants for New Euro-Currency The need for US e-merchants to tailor their websites to foreign markets will be further compounded in less than seven weeks, when on January 1, 2002,the Euro officially replaces all of the local currencies of the 12 countries of the European Monetary Union. At that time, more than 300 million people speaking 11 languages will be sharing the same currency. 

The Glocalizer is specifically designed with Euro-compatibility, enabling US merchants to price goods and services in Euros, while still receiving payment in US dollars. "The Glocalizer allows customers to not only see the products priced in a currency in which they are familiar, but they also are given the option to pay for the product in the currency of their choice. At Planet Payment, we have been anticipating this growing demand for tangible value-added multi-lingual and multi-currency solutions," says Philip Beck, CEO of Planet Payment. "The launch of the Glocalizer continues our stated strategy to provide easy-to-use payment solutions to merchants everywhere for customers anywhere in the currency of choice for both parties, whether in face-to-face transactions or over the Internet. Our solutions are uniquely geared to address the needs of global merchant who wishes to capitalize on the increased revenue opportunity that foreign customers offer." 

Planet Payment's e-commerce solution enables Internet merchants to securely accept Visa® and MasterCard® and other major debit and credit cards in a real time environment, and in over 130 currencies. The Planet Payment Gateway, powered by Authorize.Net™, is compatible with over 100 of the leading shopping cart technologies.

Source:Planet Payment - Nov 2001

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