SHOPLOCAL JANUARY INDEX REFLECTS SOFTNESS IN RETAIL

Pragmatic Shoppers Spend More Time Scrutinizing Deals, Favor Savings Over Style

Chicago - February 11, 2008 - ShopLocal™, the leader in multi-channel shopping and marketing services, today announced the ShopLocal Index was up 20 percent for the month of January compared with the same period last year. The Index, at 164 for the month (benchmarked at 100 for January 2006), reported 232 million page views versus 193 million in January 2007. Department stores and mass merchants led other market segments with 35 percent growth, reflecting typical post-holiday sales on apparel and accessories. However, retailers advertised much less in January, seemingly because they spent most of their marketing budget at the end of 2007 on deeper discounts and heightened advertising. Also, some retailers did not have a weekly circular running in January.

Consumers continue to turn to the Internet in growing numbers to view local offers before heading to the store. However, January was a month of slower growth reflecting the slowness in the retail market.

The ShopLocal Index is the advertising industry’s first market indicator designed to track the influence of the Internet on in-store shopping. Updated monthly, the Index is based on the online activity of an average of 20 million monthly consumer visits to store promotions that are presented on the sites of 50 major U.S. retailers, including JCPenney, Best Buy, Walgreens and Home Depot. These retailers cover major retail segments such as computers, consumer electronics, office supplies, home improvement, department stores, mass merchants, grocery, drug and various specialty stores. Their online circular sites are powered by ShopLocal’s SmartCircular™ technology.

January 2008 ShopLocal Index highlights include:

• The ShopLocal Index, though up 20 percent versus January 2007, is down from 36 percent annual growth in 2007. The twenty percent growth is the lowest monthly percentage increase since the Index was launched in January of 2007. These findings are consistent with the recent release of the January retail sales figures that showed only a 0.2 percent increase in the month.

• The Index showed 232 million page views in January, versus approximately 193 million last year (benchmarked at 100 from January 2006.) · Page views per visit on a per retailer basis reached 11.5, a nine percent jump versus last January as shoppers spent more time reviewing the online circulars for the best deals and savings.

• Department stores (65 percent monthly growth) and mass merchants (27 percent monthly growth) continue to lead as the top retail categories in the Index.

“We believe this month’s Index reflects a combination of the consumer’s hesitation in shopping and their stronger value orientation,” said Vikram Sharma, CEO at ShopLocal. “However, even in this soft month, the growth of the Index continues to support forecasts by Forrester and Jupiter of the ongoing increase in online-influenced offline shopping. Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy about using the Internet to find deals as retailers shift more of their advertising online.”

NOTE TO EDITORS: Indices available at www.aboutshoplocal.com/index.

About ShopLocal
ShopLocal, the leader in multi-channel shopping services, offers a complete suite of solutions connecting advertisers and consumers online and in-store. The company’s consumer Web site, ShopLocal.com, provides users with choice and control in their shopping experience by offering the most comprehensive selection of timely online and in-store offers on one easy-to-use site. With ShopLocal.com, consumers can find millions of products and up-to-date weekly sales, deals, and coupons for consumer electronics, apparel, groceries and more. 

ShopLocal’s industry leading SmartCircular, SmartMedia and SmartCatalog solutions are used by more than one hundred of the nation’s top retailers, including Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, CVS and Sears. ShopLocal powers multi-channel shopping for hundreds of newspaper Web sites and other leading local and shopping sites, such as Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Arizona Republic, Google and SuperPages.com. ShopLocal is owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI), Tribune Company and The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI). For more information, visit www.aboutshoplocal.com.