SAN FRANCISCO, CA and KARLSRUHE, GERMANY--(Marketwire - March 31, 2011) - The Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®) has selected asknet, a leading provider of global eCommerce solutions for software and digital media companies, to relaunch its online platform and revitalize its global and domestic sales strategies. The asknet platform has received top grades from GMAC for its expansive online merchandising capabilities, local currency options, and flexible solutions that empower them to be more creative and innovative in its sales strategies.
GMAC is owner of the Graduate Management Admission Test® (GMAT®) exam, used by almost 5,000 graduate business and management programs worldwide as part of the admissions process. The organization serves a global online customer base via MBA.com, an increasingly attractive way for consumers to purchase popular GMAT test prep materials through its online store. GMAC partners with John Wiley & Sons to sell print and digital test prep materials via traditional retail channels (e.g., bookstores, college bookstores and GMAT test prep centers) and online channels such as Amazon.com. In addition to prep books, MBA.com also offers highly sought-after prep materials exclusively available at MBA.com.
"We went in search of a soup-to-nuts eCommerce partner that would enable us to improve our customer experience and expand our global footprint," said Betsy McIntyre, Director of Product Management for GMAC. "asknet fit all of our functionality needs including fulfillment, but also provided key insights and data that allowed us to focus the entire organization on the potential of the online channel to be the engine of growth both domestically and globally."
asknet's platform provides GMAC and its online brand, MBA.com, with much richer data than its previous eCommerce solution. Immediately after implementing asknet, the team discovered that only 34 percent of MBA.com sales originate from outside the U.S. The numbers were surprising since more than 50 percent of the testing volume is non-U.S. This and other key market insights, combined with business intelligence from their own internal databases, have been instrumental in helping to drive GMAC's global sales strategies.
The transition and platform relaunch initiative quickly enabled GMAC to provide a vastly improved online shopping experience for its diverse global customer base. The flexibility and ease of use of asknet's global commerce platform empowers its eCommerce team to innovate and stretch the limits of its own creativity with new strategies for bundling and cross-selling products.
The asknet eCommerce platform enables MBA.com to manage the entire range of eCommerce activities, including promotions, cross-selling and fulfillment. "With our previous system, international payments had been a huge challenge with many international customers unable to pay with the currency of their choice," said McIntyre. "asknet's currency conversion and international payment options are great selling points for our globalization push."
For more information about asknet, visit www.asknet.com.
About GMAC and MBA.com
The Graduate Management Admission Council (www.gmac.com) is a nonprofit education organization of leading graduate business schools worldwide dedicated to creating access to and disseminating information about graduate management education. GMAC is based in Reston, Virginia, and has regional offices in London, New Delhi and Hong Kong. The Council's mba.com website, home to the mba.com store, is the registration portal for the GMAT exam and provides information about management education to prospective students.
About asknet
asknet is a leading provider of global eCommerce solutions that increase sales and expand markets for software and digital media companies. asknet solutions enable publishers to expand their international reach while maintaining localized services to customers in the US, Europe, Asia and new emerging markets. The asknet Digital Index (ADI), Vendor Interaction Process (VIP), and asknet Shop Cockpit (ASC) provide quick and easy solutions tailored to meet each customer's needs and enable flawless execution across the full range of eCommerce services, from order management and local payment options to multi-lingual customer service. Founded in 1995, asknet today offers localized eShops in over 170 countries. The company is based in Germany and has headquarters in San Francisco and Tokyo.
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