Victoria, BC, Canada

It has been two weeks since the launch of the highly anticipated Toshiba TG01. We have continued to keep on an eye on eBay USA trends for this device as a potential future indicator for its overall success. While initially appearing in Europe, in the past two weeks some listings for the United States have begun cropping up for Toshiba TG01 accessories. Unsurprisingly, eBay Germany continues to see the most activity in trade. Over 68% of the buyer sales are going to Germany, and 31% to other countries in Europe. AERS technology is also showing some of the sellers coming out of Hong Kong and China.

VICTORIA – AERS founder Anthony Sukow was on hand to receive the University of Victoria’s annual Craigdarroch Research Award on behalf of himself and his brother and co-founder Andrew Sukow last week.  As graduates of the University, both founders were gratified to receive the University of Victoria Innovation and Development Corporation Entrepreneurship Award.

This recognizes the company’s excellence in providing data analytics and research tools in decision support, and AERS’ longstanding vision to deliver practical research based on transactional data.  “We were grateful to have been selected for this honour among such a fine group of peers,” said Anthony Sukow, “and this further underscores the strength of our longstanding partnership with UVic.“

The Craigdarroch Research Awards were established by the University of Victoria to recognize excellence in research, and were awarded for the first time in October 2003. The awards are named for Craigdarroch Castle, which served as home to the University of Victoria’s predecessor institution, Victoria College, from 1921 to 1946. Anthony and Andrew Sukow received one of six awards handed out to seven recipients.

AERS was conceived when both Andrew and Anthony Sukow were students at the University of Victoria, and operated out of the University until September 2005.  During its earliest stages, the first-time entrepreneurs benefited from significant mentorship, investment, and other support from the University, among other individuals and organizations.

Advanced E-commerce Research Systems Inc. specializes in delivering e-commerce-based analytics and insight to support the investment, product management, marketing, and advertising decisions of its thousands of clients. AERS does this based on its core competencies in storing and mining large e-commerce datasets. AERS is comprised of two main divisions: Terapeak supplies auction analysis to eBay sellers and buyers through an on-line web interface, while Advanced delivers data and custom research to the business sector. The company was founded in 2004, and monitors over ten million consumer transactions daily.

Media contacts:

AERS – Anthony Sukow
250-483-3270
anthony [at] aers.ca

UVic Communications – Valerie Shore
250-721-7641
vshore [at] uvic.ca

Victoria, BC, Canada

January sales figures released by Avian Research revealed a decline in iPhone sales while Blackberry experienced an increase. Online trends in eBay could eventually reflect this offline trend with recent figures released from Terapeak on smart phone sales. Despite being currently outnumber by iPhones in the ecommerce market, the Blackberry is demonstrating astonishing growth that could turn the tables on its major competitors.

The percentage change of Blackberries over iPhone sales have been 75% since February 17th where the inflection point occurred. The newest Blackberry release of the Curve 8900 occurred right around that time. Coupled with the recent opening of the Blackberry application, the smart phone consumer has more model and price options than Apple currently provides.

This astonishing speed of eBay sales doesn’t show signs of slowing down as eBay users begin to look for less expensive alternative to the iPhone. Furthermore, the iPhone hasn’t had any new releases since the summer of 2008-will Apple pick up the pace?

Recently, blogger Paul Kedrosky commented on the sharp increase in the American savings rate. This level of national savings has not been seen since 1997. Given this information, it is easy to see how when compared to the more expensive iPhone, auctioned Blackberries present a more attractive offer to the budget conscious consumer.

Fred Speckeen, CEO of AERS, anticipates great innovation and insight from the partnership with Calexus. “This is very exciting,” he says. “What our teams are working towards are truly next generation market and consumer insights. Calexus technology discovers facts and relationships hidden in the literally billions of e-commerce transactions Advanced collects from across 30 product categories in each of six countries – USA, UK, Germany, France, Australia and Canada. For example, Calexus is working with AERS to investigate complex relationships between eBay auction prices and the general demand for a manufacturer’s products as reported in quarterly results.”

Doug Newell, Calexus Solutions LLC’s Managing Director, remarks, “We are delighted to be working with AERS. Together, by data-mining and text-mining terabytes of e-commerce transaction data, we will create a new genre of business information – one that includes some of the earliest indicators of changes in consumer purchasing patterns, price sensitivities and geographic pockets of demand. AERS’s unique eBay relationship and our powerful data mining technologies make a perfect match. This affiliation will unlock a whole spectrum of business opportunities.”

About AERS:

AERS specializes in delivering e-commerce-based analytics and insight to support the investment, product management, marketing, and advertising decisions of its thousands of clients. AERS does this based on its core competencies in storing and mining large e-commerce datasets.

AERS is comprised of two main divisions: Terapeak supplies auction analysis to eBay sellers and buyers through an on-line web interface, while Advanced delivers data and custom research to the business sector. The company was founded in 2004.

About Calexus:

Calexus improves business decision quality by quickly and efficiently discovering new facts and relationships. Calexus uses machine learning in the form of genetic algorithms to dynamically search masses of structured and unstructured data. The results are superior decisions and higher profitability for Calexus clients.

Calexus was founded by Doug Newell, a five-time serial entrepreneur and a recognized expert and innovator in the world of advanced analytics.

Contact information:

Fred Speckeen, President and CEO
Advanced E-commerce Research Solutions
www.AERS.ca
1-250-483-3252 (direct)

Calexus Solutions LLC
www.calexussolutions.com
1-603-432-6673

On March 5th, New Media BC will present AERS CEO Fred Speckeen as a keynote speaker at an afternoon workshop designed to provide BC entrepreneurs with the information they need to expand to the USA.

According to Speckeen, savvy entrepreneurs will understand the factors driving a continued rapid uptake of existing and new E-commerce and media products and services. For example:

• At Q3 2008 the E-commerce portion of USA retail grew to a year over year rate of 5.7%, while USA retail had only grown .3%
• 11% of online adults and 19% of 18-24 year-olds have used Twitter or a similar service
• 35% of adult Internet users have a profile on an online social networking site
• 19% of all internet users have downloaded a podcast
• 80% of young adults and >50% of all adult online users play video games

Speckeen has almost two decades experience at VP and CEO level gained internationally across the technology, media and semiconductor fields in hands-on roles spanning product management, sales, marketing and technology licensing. He has established numerous successful partnerships with USA-based firms.

Event Details

Date:       March 5, 2009

Time:       12:00 pm

Location:  Centre for Digital Media, 577 Great Northern Way Vancouver, BC V5T 1E1

Organized By  Dawn Wattie Law Corporation & New Media BC Association

Price:        $70 ($45 Member Price)

Registration Deadline:  March 3, 2009

For more information:  http://www.newmediabc.com/events.php?event=152

Whether or not demand on eBay USA decreased due to the maintained pre-discount prices is unclear. An isolated look at traded new GPS devices correlates to the observed demand for all traded GPS devices. As prices held steady, the decline continued until Black Friday had passed.

Gross sales on eBay USA during these mentioned time periods seem to indicate that ecommerce became preferred venue of trade for GPS devices when economic difficulties hit and Garmin discounted its prices. It is possible this will continue to be the case. As a country with the largest car ownership rates in the world, GPS devices have potential in the retail market for a population that is likely to use them for the purpose of planning more fuel efficient routes. Further more, if the US dollar continues increasing in value, it is possible eBay USA will see a decrease in foreign buyers who find the product relatively more expensive than before.

Until then, online demand and real world demand appear to have been decoupled. As virtual demand decreased during this year’s third quarter, Garmin’s total revenue increased from the third quarter of 2007. Although retail sales are a significant part of its profit margins, this growth also came from an increased share in the aviation and auto sectors.

In the eBay USA market, Garmin has consistently outsold other top brands such as TomTom and Magellan by as much as four times and eight times the amount respectively. Garmin is currently at the head of the pack. When the fourth quarter results are released on the 22nd February, we will discover whether it holds onto its position.

In Q4 2008, sales of new laptops on eBay USA increased from Q4 2007 by 40%. The overall gross sales for 2008 exceeded those of 2007 by nearly 30%- going from $3.25 million USD to $4.16 million USD. In contrast, new Dell and Compaq laptops have experienced declining eBay sales since April 2008.

Steadily increasing average sold prices for all HP desktops on eBay USA are demonstrating consumer preferences. Desktops sold for an average of $510 USD per laptop in June 2008. By November 2008, that value had peaked to $760 USD. Although Dell saw a similar climb, it was nowhere near as drastic-ranging from $440 USD in April 2008 to $580 USD in November 2008.

“The new name reflects the value proposition of what we offer our clients – we provide our customers with competitive intelligence that’s based on real-time e-commerce data.” says Fred Speckeen, Advanced President and CEO. “This goes beyond simply counting the number of a certain company’s mobile phones sold on a given day to illuminating the fact that that consumers are ready to pay 20% more for an unlocked version of that company’s phone than they will for a locked one, and which consumer demographic is most likely to buy, and in what regions of a country you’ll find the most buyers, and so-on. We take in data on millions of transactions daily from the world’s largest e-commerce platform, process it using proprietary techniques, host it, mine it, and provide e-commerce analytics that span over 30 consumer product categories and that illuminate the behaviour of literally millions of consumers in the USA, UK, Germany, France, Australia and Canada.”

“In further sharpening of our focus, AERS is also retiring the Dataunison brand. Now, all of our corporate-focused e-commerce analytics services will be found directly under the ‘Advanced’ umbrella. This leaves the company with a simplified brand structure and even clearer market message (www.researchadvanced.com). Our well-established and rapidly growing Terapeak brand (www.terapeak.com) will continue to be our eBay seller-facing service. ”

Along with the new name, Advanced sports a new logo and a new website www.researchadvanced.com. DataUnison.com links will continue to live on the researchadvanced.com website and will redirect seamlessly.

About Advanced E-Commerce Research Systems Inc.
Advanced is a fast growing e-commerce analytics company. Privately held, the company is headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The company delivers e-commerce data and analytics based on the world’s largest e-commerce platform, eBay. Today, Advanced is eBay’s only market data reseller and has established itself as the pre-eminent provider of the most up-to-date, thorough, and relevant e-commerce marketplace reporting available. Currently, Advanced websites receive over 1,000,000 page views per month. For more information: www.researchadvanced.com

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For further information,
Fred Speckeen, CEO
Phone: 250.483.3267
Fax: 250.483.3271
Email: fred [a] aers.ca

Commenting on the appointment, Ian H. Stewart, Q.C. and AERS Chair says, “Thrifty Foods is a Vancouver Island success story and one of Canada’s most respected providers of high-quality products. Alex Campbell is widely respected and will bring to the company his unrivalled experience in adapting business processes to facilitate continued growth and success.”

Prior to joining the board, Campbell built Vancouver Island’s single largest private sector company into a small empire of 4,100 employees. In 2007, he sold his company to Sobeys Inc. and continues to be involved in an advisory capacity.

“Given its past achievements and its energetic pursuit of new technological horizons, AERS exhibits tremendous growth potential,” says Campbell. “I know that long-term relationships require and thrive on integrity, honesty and clarity of communications, loyalty, respect and service. AERS and its employees share these values and are committed to upholding them in all aspects of AERS business affairs. I am honored and delighted to join this team.”

Other board members include: Rhys T. Eyton; Robin H. French; David H. McMillan; James H. Reed; Fred Speckeen, President and CEO; Brent Sternig;
Andrew E.R. Sukow, Chief Technical Officer; and Anthony E. R. Sukow, Executive Vice President and Board Secretary. For a full biography of the AERS Board of Directors, please use the following link: http://www.aers.ca/board.php

“Our board directors enjoy a strong collaborative relationship. The members bring a wealth of diverse knowledge and experience to the company. Collectively the board has more than 250 years of combined business expertise spanning such diverse sectors as telecommunications, entertainment, grocery, media, and transportation. We welcome Mr. Campbell and look forward to working with him,” adds President and CEO Fred Speckeen.

About Advanced Economic Research Systems Inc.

Advanced Economic Research Systems is a fast growing e-commerce data and analytics company. Privately held, the company is headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The company has two strategic business units – Terapeak and Data Unison, which deliver data and analytics based on the world’s largest e-commerce platform, eBay.

Today, AERS is eBay’s only market data reseller and has established itself as the pre-eminent provider of the most up-to-date, thorough, and relevant e-commerce marketplace reporting available. Currently, AERS websites receive over 1,000,000 page views per month.  For more information: www.aers.ca

For further information: Moira King, Moira King Communications, Mobile:
(250) 217-0659, Email: moiraking [a] shaw.ca, Fax: (250) 658-3493