10 May 2005

Multimap, Europe’s number one online mapping provider, and Barratts, the shoe retailer for the style-conscious shopper, stand together to enable customers across the UK and Ireland to find their nearest Barratts store in two easy steps. Fashion-conscious men and women can now access detailed, interactive maps of the locations of nearby Barratts stores on www.barratts.co.uk in a hop and a skip.

James Lovell, marketing manager, Barratts, commented, “Barratts has been undergoing a major modernisation in all aspects over the last six months, including the web site. Multimap was the obvious mapping partner of choice as it’s synonymous in the trade for rapid implementation, reliability, accurate and clear maps, and excellent customer service. And we haven’t been disappointed on any front.

“Our visitors are now typically spending as long as ten minutes on the site, and we register an average of 50 pages impressions per visit. We estimate that 20 to 25% of customers visiting our web site use the Storefinder service, which means Multimap plays a huge part in our successful online interaction with customers,” he continued.

Visitors to www.barratts.co.uk click on the ‘Stores’ tab on the homepage, and type in their town or postcode to receive a list of the top five nearest stores, in order of proximity to the location entered, plus an overview map with full zoom in/out, and pan N, S, E, W functionality. Each entry has full contact details, opening times, distance from the location entered, and a link to a detailed map showing its exact location.

Jeff Kelisky, CEO, Multimap, said, "It is a pleasure to work with Barratts. It’s a market-driven organisation that really understands its customers and puts their needs and expectations first. Its on-line operation provides an excellent example of how our mapping services can measurably increase customers’ engagement with a company’s products and where they can be bought.”

About Multimap

Multimap is Europe's leading provider of mapping and location-based services. The company delivers more online maps, point-to-point driving directions and geo-spatial ("where's my nearest?") searches to more companies than any other supplier in Europe. All services are offered on mobile, PDA, kiosk, and interactive TV platforms and in multiple languages.

The public website, www.multimap.com, provides a range of free, useful services to assist with everyday life. Key features include street-level maps of Europe, USA, Canada and Australia; road maps of the world; door-to-door travel directions; aerial photographs; links to location information; and services such as hotel, restaurant and entertainment booking. The public site attracts over 8.6 million unique users, registers more than 160 million page impressions every month, and is one of the top 10 most visited websites in the UK. Multimap recently featured in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 league table of fastest-growing unquoted UK companies across all sectors.

About Barratts

Barratts Shoes are the leading fashion footwear retailer in the UK and Ireland. With over 180 stores Barratts can service the majority of the population with up to the minute fashionable ranges for men, women and children.

The ranges stocked by Barratts incorporate many leading brands such as Caterpillar, Kickers, Skechers, Hush Puppies, Wrangler, Rockwood and Saxone. This gives customers excellent choice for all the family at great value prices.

The Barratts website www.barratts.co.uk, is the latest development in the new Barratts brand identity. The website has been in operation for 12months, and the initial results have encouraged Barratts to look at rolling out a full e-commerce solution which should be live by the end of 2005.