Active Decisions' New 'Active Sales
Assistant' Increases E-Tail Conversion Rate




SonyStyle.com Uses Active's Personalized Recommendation Service

To Help Guide Online Shoppers Through Myriad of Product Offerings



BURLINGAME, Calif.----Feb. 12, 2001--Active
Decisions Inc. (ADI), a leading provider of eCRM decision support
applications, today launched Active Sales Assistant(TM), an
interactive decision guide for eCommerce sites that helps consumers
decide what to buy in over 120 product categories.


Already deployed by a number of major consumer electronics,
computer, and entertainment e-tailers, the Active Sales Assistant can
be customized for and seamlessly integrated into the "look and feel"
of a licensee's own Web site. Retailers and manufacturers provide the
service to their customers to increase online sales, customer
confidence, brand loyalty, and site "stickiness," while lowering
return rates and costly customer support.

    Customers, such as Sony Electronics e-Solutions Company LLC,
incorporate the technology in their ecommerce web site. "Technology
from Active helps us convert online shoppers into buyers," said Brian
Siegel, manager of new business development at Sony Electronics
e-Solutions Company, which manages the more than 750 consumer
electronics products and services on the SonyStyle.com web site.
"Active's system, like a knowledgeable sales person, helps customers
quickly determine which product best meets their individual needs."


Active Sales Assistant's easy-to-use, interactive
question-and-answer format hones in on consumer preferences,
generating intelligent, personalized, value-based recommendations (see screenshot). 
Each retailer's latest pricing and product availability information is
updated automatically via an XML feed. This service helps online
shoppers make more timely, well-informed, and satisfying purchase
decisions by recommending and comparing the products that best fit
their personal priorities in terms of price and features. It also
aggregates information about consumer preferences that can help
retailers and manufacturers better understand their customers.


The same scalable technology that has been licensed to major
portals such as Yahoo and Lycos is being used to power the
recommendation engine in Active Sales Assistant. The software is
extremely mature, having been used by tens of millions of online
shoppers and having gone through two years of usability testing. The
service also comes bundled with Active Product Spex(TM) which provides
comprehensive product specification data and photos that are always
up-to-date. This enables retailers and manufacturers to implement
Active Sales Assistant in as little time as one week.


"If an online retailer doesn't quickly differentiate itself by
offering consumers the tools they need to make better choices, the
competition is only a click away," said Tom DuBois, COO of Active
Decisions, in making today's announcement. "80% of online shoppers
that have used Active Sales Assistant intend to buy one of the
recommended products. It is an extremely useful tool that saves
shoppers both time and money. This increased customer satisfaction is
reflected in higher sales conversion rates, greater retailer loyalty,
fewer returns, and improved bottom line results."


"In today's fast-growing but highly competitive e-tailing
environment, revenues count, but ROI is king," added Jeff Dunn, Active
Decisions' president and CEO. "By helping our clients' customers make
better purchase decisions, we dramatically reduce 'buyers remorse' and
the costly product returns that go with it. At the same time, our
highly automated decision-support technology dramatically reduces
customer service costs for the e-tailers themselves. We also save them
money by offering our Active Sales Assistant 'recommendation engine'
at prices well below what it would cost them to develop this complex
and sophisticated technology in-house."


Pricing and Availability


The new Active Sales Assistant decision-support service is now
available to the full range of online retailers traditional "bricks
and mortar," hybrid "clicks and bricks," and so-called "pure play"
e-tailers with prices for the fully integrated, site-specific service
beginning at $100,000.


About Active Decisions


Active Decisions, Inc. (ADI) is the leading provider of eCRM
decision support applications. The company helps businesses increase
revenue by providing online sales assistance while generating
real-time intelligence about customer needs. More than 80 Fortune 500
companies, leading portals, and ecommerce sites use Active Decisions'
technology to reach millions of active buyers every month. The
company's products include Active Buyer's Guide, the Web's leading
recommendation engine; Active Sales Assistant, a personalized online
sales agent; and Active Advisor demand forecasting system.

Named a "Hot 100" company by Upside Magazine, Active Decisions
provides solutions that span major markets including consumer
electronics, computers, appliances, automotive, and financial
services. Customers include Ford Motor Company, Consumer Reports,
Sony, e*Trade, Ralston Purina, GE, McKinsey & Co., and Inktomi.
Founded in 1997, Active Decisions (formerly Active Research) is based
in Burlingame, and on the Web at www.ActiveDecisions.com and
www.ActiveBuyersGuide.com.


Active Buyer's Guide is a registered trademark;
Active Advisor, Active Sales Assistant, and Active Product Spex are
trademarks of Active Decisions, Inc. All other company and product
names are trademarks of their respective owners.



    --30--mmc/sf*        jr/sf

    CONTACT: Active Decisions                        
             Cheri Hariri, 650/762-2531                            
             cheri@activedecisions.com
              or
             The Hamilton Group
             Alexis Hamilton, 650/843-1265
             alexis@hgpr.com