Company Press Release

New Online Gift Certificate Superstore Puts Shopping Centers on the Internet

BIRMINGHAM, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 28, 1999--Now shopping centers can reach their customers any time of the day or night with the launch of www.i-gift.com -- the only online gift store to specialize in shopping center gift certificates.

``Other gift certificate e-tailers offer retail and restaurant gift certificates,'' said Richard Stiennon, president of i-gift.com, ``but i-gift.com is the only website to specialize in shopping center gift certificates -- the gift that gives the recipient his or her choice from literally hundreds of stores.''

Stiennon added that more than 20 shopping centers throughout North America already have signed up with i-gift's online gift certificate program, with many more still to come.

``We expect our list of participating retailers to more than triple as the crucial holiday buying season approaches,'' he said. Current i-gift.com retail partners include the Somerset Collection, Troy, Mich.; the upscale Bal Harbour Shops in Miami, Fla.; Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio; and Chicago-based Landau & Heyman, whose 14 properties are clustered mostly in the Midwest.

Customers can visit a shopping center's own website or www.i-gift.com to order customized gift certificates and have them sent directly to the recipient as soon as the next business day, making i-gift a great way to boost last-minute sales. The i-gift program provides shopping centers with a 24-hour, seven-day-per-week gift certificate solution that includes website or web link design, order and fulfillment tracking, and advertising and marketing.

``Both i-gift.com and shopping center websites supported by the i-gift program include customer-pleasing features like a personal address book, free membership so customers needn't enter the same information over and over again, a sophisticated search engine to find a shopping center near recipients, and a personal calendar with automatic email reminder service,'' Stiennon noted. ``The i-gift engine is driven by a suite of cutting-edge i-commerce technology: Linux, Java, Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) from Sybase, and the Zope web publishing server from Digital Creations.

Stiennon said that i-gift.com selected Sybase's ASE software to power not only its consumer website, but also its corporate extranet and its own internal customer-service and fulfillment operations.

``Sybase has a long and successful history in enterprise software development and its ASE product is rock-solid, stable and robust -- qualities that are essential to a growing Internet company,'' Stiennon said. ``In searching for a superior infrastructure solution, we found that Sybase offered the most cost-effective database for our Linux platform.''

Founded by former Detroit Pistons basketball star Isiah Thomas, i-gift.com is an Internet solutions company specializing in online gift certificates. In addition to www.i-gift.com, the company's online gift certificate superstore, i-gift.com co-brands its powerful gift certificate engine for its shopping center partners and provides customized gift certificate portals for corporate customers.

     i-gift.com
     Sara Conley, 248/723-8456
     sara@isiah.com
     OR
     AutoCom Associates
     Larry Weis, 248/647-8621
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