GSI Commerce Inc. and MLB Advanced Media L.P., the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, extended their e-commerce agreement through 2016. With the agreement, GSI continues to provide Major League Baseball's online store with e-commerce technology, fulfillment and customer care. In addition, through its marketing services division, gsi interactive, GSI will continue to provide catalog services and will begin to provide affiliate marketing and search engine marketing services.
“We expect our 2007 sales to be nearly three times greater than our annual sales were prior to partnering with GSI,” said Noah Garden, executive vice president, commerce & sponsorship, MLBAM. “GSI's capabilities are unique and market leading in this industry and they offer MLB.com an opportunity to leverage their tremendous scale and expertise as we strive to provide our fans with a rewarding online shopping experience. We are happy to extend our long- term agreement with GSI and to partner with them for an expanded scope of services.”
“We are proud to expand our relationship with Major League Baseball — one of America's iconic organizations,” said Scott Hardy, GSI executive vice president of business management. “We are even more excited to continue to help Major League Baseball further strengthen its direct-to-consumer business and enrich the online shopping experience of its fans.”
In July, GSI successfully launched a redesigned MLB.com Shop, which included the addition of Web 2.0 features such as mini-cart(TM) and express shop(TM), new product zoom and rotate features, new content management capabilities and enhanced site navigation. Each of these features is designed to improve the fans' shopping experience on the site. To drive the multichannel experience, GSI's marketing services group also partnered with MLBAM in creating and publishing MLB.com's 2007 catalog, which has a circulation of 8.5 million. Consumers can also shop the catalog online.
In addition to Major League Baseball, GSI has agreements to manage the Web stores for all major professional sports leagues in the United States including the NFL, the NBA, the NHL and NASCAR.
