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Bell has adopted direct primary care, a new model for paying for health care that aims to give better access and more personal care to patients.

Bruce Bell added a new payment model to his practice. Under this model — a more affordable offshoot of concierge medicine — called direct primary care, about 40 of his patients, about 2 percent of his practice. An estimated 5, to 5, doctors and clinics have adopted direct primary care or concierge medicine systems, according to the Concierge Medicine Research Collective.

The most windows 10 1703 download iso itasca bankrate – windows 10 1703 download iso itasca bankrate specialties to use the model bankraye primary care, family medicine, cardiology and pediatrics. How it works Under the direct primary care model, patients pay a flat fee in exchange for routine and preventative care. They typically get more time with the doctors, and at some practices, they can make same-day appointments or call the doctor directly.

But the board could decide to pursue restitution from The Advantage Group, a youth substance abuse program that closed earlier this month.

The Mental Health Board is almost entirely made up of new members in the wake of an ongoing County Board shakeup after years of allegations that it became a top-heavy bureaucracy that spends too much on itself at.

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School groups would still be able to attend for free. The page suit filed in U. Pat Quinn as defendants. Parole issues have haunted the Quinn administration. A scandal involving the early release of inmates to lessen the prison population in almost cost Quinn re-election in The lawsuit says 30, parolees are also potentially subject to such hearings. Applicable as an in-store credit when you purchase any Tempur-Pedic Mattress Set.

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Earlier this month, I donned a pink shirt in memory of my mother, Roberta Reeder. To be honest, sometimes I think all of the October pink ribbons, shirts and merchandise trivialize just how pernicious breast cancer really is.

One good thing about Breast Cancer Awareness Month is it gets us thinking about what we. Cook a meal. Sit by a bedside. Comfort a family member. Please donate or volunteer. Your help is needed. Folks from my hometown of Galesburg did all of those things for my family. It was most appreciated. A cancer diagnosis can be overwhelming. When Mom first received her terminal prognosis four years ago, the family was devastated.

Shortly after she was told the cancer was beyond cure, we had a birthday party for my eldest daughter. My wife, Joan, thought of her mother, who died of breast cancer a few weeks before our wedding. At times, during this long battle with cancer, I was at a loss to know what to say to my mom. Sores developed on her feet. The cancer sapped her energy. Nausea haunted her for years. It was not an easy life. But it was one she endured without complaining.

Some folks call that courage. I call it character. Despite her difficulties, mom always had a smile for her family. I love you, Mom. He can be reached at sreeder illinoispolicy.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Another cold start to the day as temperatures began in the upper 20s. Breezy northwest winds will continue to usher a very cool, Canadian air mass.

Winds could gust up to 20 mph throughout the afternoon. Louis St. Paul Tampa Tucson Wash. Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day. Weather W : s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow flurries, sn-snow, i-ice. One coupon per system.

Must present coupon at time of tune-up. Not valid with any other offers or discounts. Dolores D. Bruemmer, 81, of Huntley was charged with failure to use due care to avoid a collision after she accelerated her Ford Contour into the building as she attempted to park her car in front of the business, according to a Woodstock police news release.

Bruemmer was treated and released at the scene shortly after police and firefighters responded to the call at p. No other patrons were injured at the business at Cass St. Going into the meeting, five of six. Much like sewer and water where costs are covered by user fees. Around 3 p. A man was transported to the hospital for precautionary reasons and did not have any injuries, according to the Algonquin Fire Department.

Two northbound Randall Road lanes at Harnish Drive were closed as the crash was cleared. This is an evening of entertainment, dancing, magic, food and a cash bar hosted by Friends of the Opera House. Come as a favorite celebrity or a character from the silver screen. Cash prize for best costume. For registration and information, call or visit www.

The event includes entrance to Madness Manor Haunted House, three drink passes for use at any of eight participating bars and restaurants and entry to the Zombie Pub Crawl Costume Contest. Must be age 21 or older to attend. For tickets and information, call or visit www. DeMarco 67, Johnsburg Dean A. During the fall, from the time the first frost hits until Thanksgiving, area marinas work to keep up with the demands of local boaters, winterizing hundreds of boats before temperatures drop below freezing.

School District 2 staff members presented the draft results from a facilities audit conducted over the last few months at the building and grounds committee meeting Tuesday. We should have The man and three others were pulled over at the Walgreens on Route Around p. Cary police pulled over a vehicle at the Walgreens on Route 14 that matched the description of the getaway car.

Four individuals were taken to the Cary police station for questioning, and no arrests have been made, said Cary Police Sgt. Mike Roth. The weapon — a BB gun — was recovered at the Walgreens. Village officials Tuesday approved a new contract with the local chapter of the Metropolitan Alliance of Police, which represents 36 employees. Human Resources Di-. Police officers will receive on average a 2 percent wage increase each year under the four-year deal. The pay increase is retroactive to May 1.

The previous contract expired April Walker said the village. The new contract also allows the village to phase out the free health insurance it offers to police officers who have single coverage.

As new officers come on to the force, and if they take single coverage, they will have to pay 15 percent of the premium, Walker said. Everyone is invited. Information: www. Registration and information: or www. How to make the most out of life will be explored. Information: Main St. Registration and information: or jean brokerocity.

Algonquin Road, Lake in the Hills. Hosted by Cary Post All veterans welcome. Continued from page B1 Officers who have family coverage pay 15 percent toward their health insurance.

There are 10 to 11 police officers who presently take single coverage, but those numbers would go down if the officers get married and have children, Walker said. Smith said she would still. The final bond payment was made in , ending the year loan. It was estimated at the time that removing the bond payment saved a homeowner. She said the quicker it rebounds, the more attractive it would be to potential buyers while continued struggles could keep it in village control for a longer time.

Two residents also brought up the possibility of a referendum to let all village citizens vote on the measure, but Smith said the board has not discussed that option yet. Continued from page B1 Each entry pinpoints the school where the problem is, the type of problem, how critical it is, the effect it has and an estimated project cost. The district also can add entries.

The software is a big step up from the system the district previously used, which required the building and grounds director to get cost estimates on each project as they were identified and insert them into a spreadsheet, Superintendent Dan Oest said. She was born Jan. She actively worked to make her community a better place.

A passion of hers was supporting St. Veronica was upbeat throughout her life and up to her passing. She was preceded in death by her father, Leroy; and a brother, Jim Zelske. The memorial visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.

Saturday, Oct. Jude Place, Memphis, TN For information, call the funeral home at Sign the guest book at www. Jerry is survived by his wife of 34 years, Deborah; father, Gerald Bennett Sr. He was preceded in death by his mother, Vernell Bennett, in June of this year. He was a wonderful husband, a talented musician and vocalist and an animal lover. He played a variety of instruments, starting with drums and moving to Latin percussion and harmonica.

Over the years, he shared his life with seven dogs, and he had a soft spot in his heart for each one. Jerry had a wonderful and witty sense of humor, a creative mind and was a truly unique individual. He will be missed by many. The memorial visitation will be from 4 to 9 p. Terra Cotta Ave. Route , Crystal Lake. Interment will be private. Box , Dwight, IL , www.

Condolences may be sent to www. For information, call Benson, 62, of Algonquin, passed away Saturday, Oct. He was born Jan. Rich found a way to sustain some quality of life while living with pulmonary fibrosis. He did so with a great attitude and a commitment to having a positive influence on his family.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Edwin Benson Sr. The memorial visitation will be from 3 to 9 p. Friday, Oct. Veronica Armstrong: A memorial visitation will be from 4 to 8 p. Richard D. Benson: The memorial visitation will be from 3 to 9 p.

Algonquin Road, Algonquin. Inurnment will be in Algonquin Cemetery. Joseph E. Britz: A memorial gathering will be from 1 to 4 p. Saturday, Nov.

Annette Louise Brogan: The visitation will be from 4 to 8 p. The visitation will continue from 9 a. Mass celebration Saturday, Oct.

Interment will be in St. Patrick Countryside Cemetery, McHenry. Raymond T. Cauwels: The visitation will be from a. Dean A. Jessica Lynn Fruehe: The visitation will be from 2 to 8 p. Seminary Ave. All other services will be private. Carol Fuller: The visitation will be from 9 a. Cannot combine coupons.

Prior sales are not valid. Air cleaner model , CFM. Valid on the purchase of a Rheem furnace and Air Conditioner. Northwest Hwy. Corner of Rt. Cremation Care, W. Inurnment will be at Algonquin Cemetery. Walker said the village considered current economic conditions when negotiating the contract. Once the database is finalized, the building and grounds committee will begin working through the database and putting together plans.

Saturday, October 26th p. Ketel One, ml She was born Aug. On Oct. Annette was a loving mother, grandmother and aunt to many nieces and nephews. She worked in the hospitality industry in and around McHenry County. She was a wonderful cook and homemaker and enjoyed reading her Bible and attending Bible studies. She was preceded in death by her parents; and her husband, William in The visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.

Cauwels, 83, of Cary, passed away Tuesday, Oct. He was born Dec. Besides his parents, he was preceded in death by a son-inlaw, Jeffrey Rutter.

Ray attended St. He served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War and was a proud marine his entire life. Retiring at age 60, he and his wife spent the next 20 years spending the good life of retirement traveling in their RV. They spent most of that time in Florala, Ala. The visitation will be from a.

For information, call the funeral home at or visit kahlemoore. Christensen, 61, of Edwards, Colo. He was preceded in death by his parents, N. Harry and Margaret. A memorial service will be at a later time. Died: Oct. DeMarco, 67, of Johnsburg, died Tuesday, Oct. He was born Nov. Williams DeMarco. He is survived by his sons, Timothy W. DeMarco of Johnsburg, Larry J. DeMarco of Minnesota and James G. He was preceded in death by a sister, Nina.

Services will be a later date. DEAN A. Dean was en route to Arizona in his camper with his son, Shawn, when he died of complications from diabetes which he had for 20 years. Dean graduated from Jacobs High School in He worked for Burgett Builders on the North Shore doing home remodeling.

He was very talented working with cars. He could fix just about anything. He had a personality and smile everyone loved and a very generous heart. On Jan. Fuller in Hebron. Carol was a loving wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She greatly enjoyed spending time with her family and friends. She was a member of Grace Lutheran Church in Woodstock. She had been a Sunday school teacher, active in Naomi Circle, served on the alter guild and had a strong faith.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Eugene Fuller in ; her parents; two sons, Eugene and Douglas; a granddaughter, Hope Fuller; a great-granddaughter, Meghan Mungle; two sisters; and two brothers.

The visitation will be from 9 a. He was born Sept. Wakefield Myatt. Arthur was a veteran of the U. He was a hard worker and would give the shirt off his back to anyone. He enjoyed reading, crossword puzzles, cooking and watching some good old western movies. He was preceded in death by his parents; two wives, Ramona Myatt of 36 years and Joyce Myatt of six years; and two sisters, Phyllis Francis and Elsie Westfall. The memorial visitation will be from 1 p.

If desired, memorials may be made to the family. Interment will be private in Windridge Memorial Park in Cary. The funeral service will be at 2 p. Washington St. Pastor Jeff Hammer will officiate. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to First Baptist Church, E. For information, call Davenport Family Funeral Home at For online condolences, visit www.

William was born June 7, , in Greenville, Tenn. William was a buffer for Parsons Casket Hardware Company until it closed and then for Capron Manufacturing as a platter until he retired. William enjoyed fishing and liked old cars. William was preceded in death by his parents; son, Danny Reynolds; sister, Darlene Hobson; and brother, Charles Reynolds. The memorial service will be at 11 a.

Monday, Oct. Hurlbut Ave. Cremation rites have been accorded. Memorials can be given in care of the family. To light a candle or to share a memory, visit www. RITA T. Siok, 91, of Elkhorn, Wis. She married Henry S. She and Hank retired to Elkhorn in Rita loved being outdoors, camping, boating and fishing. Her greatest joy was her family, and she loved nothing more than spending time and sharing stories with them. Her laugh was unmistakable and her smile lit up the room.

She loved helping people and worked as a social worker senior aide for Walworth County, as well as being involved in her church and community. She was often found in the garden, where her plants never failed to grow. Family and friends remember her home as a welcome place with an always open door. She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Henry S.

Walworth St. Visitation and interment private. For information, call Morizzo Funeral Home at The family also invites you to visit www. Bruce Allen Johnson: The funeral service will be at 7 p. Thursday, Oct. Crystal Lake Ave. There will also be a brief visitation at the church from 6 p. Interment will be in Hillcrest Cemetery in Irene, S. Alice E. Keisler: The funeral services will be at 11 a. The visitation will be Thursday morning at the church from 10 a. For information, call Miller Funeral Home at The viewing followed by a Mass celebration will be at 9 a.

Interment will be in Evergreen Cemetery, Barrington. Arthur Alwyn Myatt: The memorial visitation will be from 1 p. William Frank Reynolds: The memorial service will be at 11 a. Hurlbut Ave, Belvidere, with a memorial gathering from 10 a. Rita T. Siok: The visitation will be from a. Rider Landon Bud Strobel: The memorial visitation will be from 1 to 4 p. Grant Highway, Marengo. Penalty for early withdrawal. Supervalu Target United Contint. Wal-Mart Walgreen Waste Mgmt. Wintrust Fincl.

Lower ratings typically result in higher interest rates. A rendering provided by Kahler Slater Inc. An ongoing lawsuit over the project delayed a groundbreaking set for Wednesday. With a final court date set, Centegra pushed back the groundbreaking to late December or early January as a precaution. The details regarding the project are not available at this time, and Fitch will assess the impact of the project on the rating.

If operating performance does not improve in the near term, negative rating pressure is likely. Visit NWHerald. Construction will begin next spring. The building is expected to be completed by fall Iden said his business was outgrowing its existing Elgin building. The company also makes its own line of custom ratchet straps and tie down assemblies. Its third-quarter earnings plunged 44 percent, and it cut its forecast, again. Most of the decline is in its mining gear business, where revenue is expected to fall 40 percent.

Until this year, rising commodity prices had fueled a mining boom. Caterpillar has already been shutting factories and cut its workforce by about 13, people and temporarily laid off thousands of salaried workers. It said it also has cut its capital spending plans for the year.

At the end of the quarter, it employed , people full time worldwide. Even with the slowdown, it still posted operating profits in each of its units.

Besides mining gear, Caterpillar makes construction and forestry equipment and large power generators. Friday at the UniCarriers Americas facility in Marengo. The forklift operator course provides a way for businesses to comply with Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. The training provides participants with knowledge in powered industrial truck forklift operation and teaches the skills required to operate a lift truck in a correct and professional manner.

Trucks covered are Industrial Truck Association Classes 1 through 5. Another class will be held Nov. Participants get a certificate of completion at the end of the course. To register, call For information on forklift training or other safety programs, contact the MCC Shah Center at or shahcenter mchenry.

This column addresses some of the common errors employers make with final pay. For example, if your vacation year runs from Jan. For example, if employees earn a bonus based on profits each quarter and an employee leaves in the middle of the quarter, he or she is entitled to 50 percent of the bonus amount. It is best to get a promissory note at the time the loan or cash advance is made so collecting after termination is easier.

If you allow employees to borrow against future vacation earnings, the money equivalent cannot be deducted from their final paycheck. A better practice is to allow the employee to take the time, but reserve paying for the time until. Yes, the cost has gone up — but not as much as in the past. Out-of-state prices, as well as the costs to attend public two-year colleges and private institutions rose but they also avoided big spikes, said Sandy Baum, co-author of the report.

These more moderate increases could lessen concern that an annual rapid growth in tuition prices is the new normal. There are grants, tax credits and deductions that help ease the cost of going to college.

About twothirds of full-time students get grants, most from the federal government. That means students have to foot more of the bill themselves.

The net price is what they actually pay after grants. There were years this decade that saw the net price going down, but it has gone up the last two years. Her organization represents the presidents of. The College Board is a notfor-profit membership group that promotes college access and owns the SAT exam.

The report spells out the large declines in state appropriations given to public institutions in recent years. These cuts have been blamed for rises in college costs. Other causes often cited range from the high cost of health care for employees to the demand by students for flashier campus amenities.

The Focus, according to Ford, beat the perennial No. A Polk spokeswoman confirmed that the number provided by Ford was accurate, but declined further comment. If the Focus beats Corolla. The Japanese automaker has said it sold a Corolla hatchback under the Matrix name, and it sells cars that are nearly identical to the Corolla under different names in countries outside the U.

Toyota has contended that if all the other nameplates are added in, the Corolla is the winner. Ford on Wednesday claimed that crown for its Focus compact during the first half of the year, based on registration data gathered by the R. The Dearborn, Mich. Algonquin Rd. Reach her at or email karlad hrtechniques. You are allowed to ask the employee to sign an authorization at the time the final deduction is made, but former authorizations do not hold at termination, except for loans, education or cash advances.

Employees have the right to receive final pay on the next scheduled company pay date. In those. For years, filmmakers, artists and charities have used the power of the Internet to generate money for projects. But in the coming year, with the blessing of Congress, startups will be allowed to raise money this way by selling stock to smalltime investors. And critics warn that investment crowdfunding is ripe for fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday took a step to-.

The SEC voted to send the proposal out for public comment. Final rules could be approved next year. Those with higher incomes could invest up to 10 percent. Companies also would be required to provide information to prospective investors about their business plan and financial condition, as well as a list of their officers, directors and those who own at least 20 percent of the company.

Crowdfunding is hardly new. Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have for years helped fund projects through donations raised online. In return, supports can receive a gift, such as a T-shirt or a song named after them. Or they can simply feel satisfied knowing that they helped a good cause. But under the law enacted last year, businesses would be able to offer investors a piece of the company for the first time.

Fundraising over the Internet could be a pathway to getting in early on the next big trend. Experts warn that nearly 55 percent of startups fail within five years.

Third-quarter net income rose 12 percent as the company delivered planes to customers at a quicker pace. It has already sped up the assembly of two of its planes — the and — and on Wednesday announced plans to boost production of its new Dreamliner, too.

Boeing raised its profit guid-. South won, But when his shot glanced off the left post, optimism temporarily shifted to fear. Video online Watch highlights of the Crystal Lake South vs. Win or lose. Grabowski cut into a deficit, finishing on a feed from Orlando. And after being outplayed by the second-seeded Trojans for much of the match, the Gators suddenly had new life. Yes, they can. Cutler is a significantly better quarterback than McCown, and no one is pretending otherwise.

Cutler has one of the best arms in the league and a hair trigger to match. Cutler has the kind of gunslinger mentality that leads to magic moments and shattering disappointments. McCown is like a coach on the field. Cutler has franchise quarterback potential, McCown does not. Fortunately, none of that is particularly relevant at the moment. While Cutler was clearly playing the best football of his career when he suffered a severe groin injury Sunday against the Redskins, he was nowhere near achieving his full potential and was still making the occasional big mistake.

There has been dramatic improvement on the offensive line, at tight end and at wide receiver. Louis and Minnesota. But the No. It was a tough loss to take for the Chargers, who put more shots on net than Larkin and had several prime scoring opportunities in the second half. The match was scoreless. This year, as a No. Youel and Wallace had. Six singles players and six doubles teams from the area will compete at state beginning Thursday at sites across the northwest suburbs.

Bum was laid to rest today at a spot that he picked out on his ranch. LuvyaBum — sonofbum Wade Phillips. No explanation was given.

Here are some worse options they could pursue: 1. Trade for Brandon Weeden 2. JaMarcus Russell 3. Tim Tebow left. Three losses later, the season feels as empty as what Geraldo found. Am I depressing you? Am I painting a bleak landscape? I only do it to lift you up again. The good news following the bad: You have the Blackhawks. You have the Bulls. You have the defending Stanley Cup champions. You have a team that might be in the hunt for an NBA championship this season.

And you have You Know Who. Derrick Rose has been lighting it up for the Bulls during the preseason. So, yes, Rose as savior. Deal with the concept. The best spectator sport of all this season might be watching angry, resentful people crawl back to Rose.

This is a fantastic opportunity for the Bulls and Hawks to get more notice in the historically dark months of October, November and December. And January and February, come to think of it. The post-Cup hangover of occurred because salary-cap issues led to a roster bloodletting. This time, there was much less turnover. Fans have every right to believe the Hawks will pick up where they left off. Oh, there will be challenges. As many as 14 Hawks might compete for their countries in February, though 10 is a.

Will there be any fallout from that? Will there be injuries? Will NHL contenders with fewer Olympic players benefit from the rest? Of course, you recall. A nice problem to have. While the Cubs try to hire a manager and the Sox wonder whether theirs is the right man for the job, the Bulls and Hawks have oak trees for coaches. The Bulls have some issues, too. The Bulls are going to have to find other people besides Rose who can score, something they struggled to do two years ago.

Can everybody survive the season? Can Rose? Those are scary questions, but life could be a lot worse. You could have mediocre Bulls and Hawks teams, a sinking Bears product and the specter of more bad baseball on the North Side and lingering doubts on the South Side. Write to him at rmorrissey suntimes. To get it done, on both sides of the city, wow, that would be special. Especially for me because I live there all.

I want to go back to managing. His tumultuous relationship with then general manager Ken Williams was well documented, but Guillen says it was only personal and not baseball-related. He said he appreciated Williams after he left the Sox and went to manage the Marlins, who fired him after one season in when the backlash caused by his praise of Fidel Castro caught up to him.

Honesty is the best thing. A lot of people thought Kenny and I fought but we never fight about the ballclub. Maybe some personal stuff, but about the ballclub we never did.

We were professional about it. A lot of things happened in Miami , I wish Kenny was there to handle the stuff the way it should be handled. But it depends what they want. The St. Mike Napoli hit a three-run double right after the umps reversed a blown call, Jon Lester made an early lead stand up and the Red Sox romped past sloppy St. Louis, , Wednesday night for their ninth straight Series win. The Red Sox also capitalized on two errors by shortstop Pete Kozma to extend a.

Next Game 2: St. Louis Wacha at Boston Lackey , p. Thursday, Fox Series winning streak that began when they swept St. Louis in Boston never trailed at any point in those four games and, thanks to this embarrassing display by the Cardinals, coasted on a rollicking night at Fenway Park. It got so bad for St. Serious-minded St. The six-man crew correctly ruled that Kozma had not caught a soft toss from second baseman Matt Carpenter on a slow grounder by Ortiz.

A season before Major League Baseball employs full replay, fans got to see a wrong get righted. The normally slick-fielding Cardinals looked sloppy at every turn. The Cardinal Way? More like no way. Two days after Meriweather was told he would miss time for repeated violations of player safety rules, hearing officer Ted Cottrell reduced the punishment to one game.

Meriweather was flagged for a helmet-to-helmet hit when tackling receiver Alshon Jeffery on a yard completion with about two minutes left in the third quarter. He also was penalized for a helmet-first hit on Brandon Marshall in the end zone on an incomplete pass with a little more than four minutes remaining in the game. Jumpers from just beyond the free-throw line, followed by baseline dunk after baseline dunk. But coach Tom Thibodeau crushed any hope that Noah might be ready for the regular-season opener on the road against the Miami Heat on Tuesday.

It [stinks]. A little groin injury, I have to be smart. I want to be out there as soon as I can. All Hinrich could do was jog on the court. Thibodeau said. Hinrich was hoping to get back on the court for the last exhibition Friday against the Denver Nuggets, but even that appeared doubtful. Notes: Derrick Rose shook off poor shooting early to hit clutch shots late, and Carlos Boozer had 20 points and 13 rebounds to lead the Bulls over the Thunder.

The Bulls remained the only unbeaten team in the preseason behind Rose, who hit three 3-pointers in the final 4 minutes. He scored 26 points on 6-of shooting in 34 minutes. Luol Deng had 20 points and 10 rebounds for the Bulls. Write to him at jcowley suntimes.

North won, While their win two weeks ago against Woodstock made the Thunder confident they could replicate their performance Wednesday in the Class 2A regional semifinal, the stakes this time were completely different. We want it. In the second half I thought we were going to get back in it. Goalkeeping was kind of an issue tonight. Freshman forward Edder Tapia finished off the scoring on a cross from Chris Niese. They believe in themselves. Youel and Wallace know there are potentially lower seeded and even unseeded teams with the potential to knock them off.

They should know: They were not seeded last year and beat two seeded teams at state. Gators coach Don Nead said it was deserved.

Laktash and Rasmussen were this season, with two of those losses coming against Youel and Wallace at the FVC and sectional tournaments. Laktash will be making her third trip to state in doubles, the previous two with South grad Rachel Siemon. Rasmussen will be playing at state for the first time.

Their goal was simply to make it. As the parent turned and walked away, Reddish, then also a varsity assistant, smiled.

Even at the lowest levels, undefeated volleyball seasons in the FVC are rare. Once girls start playing at the varsity level, parity takes over and unblemished records become anomalies. But after tasting that success to start their high school tenures, outsides Krissy Pratt and Kassi Dvoracek, libero Annie Fox, setter Sydney Nelson, middle Rachael Schoepke and right side Maddy Cysewski refused to settle. Two Central seniors — middle hitter Lauren Leverenz and setter Natalie Ricca — were playing on varsity when their classmates went undefeated as sophomores.

Still, Leverenz and Ricca had an impressive run. Central has not lost a division match since. They wanted to be just like outside hitter Carly Hayes, middle blocker Kathryn Chrystal, right side hitter Rachael Thornquist, setter Kelly Farrell and libero. Paige Economos. The Tigers came to matches decked out in Central gear, leaning over on the bleachers and cheering. This group has a knack for making things easier for one another. It is the first time since the crosstown rivals have met, so South is one team this Tigers squad never has played, much less beaten.

Six minutes in, senior Niko Mihalopoulos headed a cross from Jack Bessey across the 6-yard box to Gonzalez, who found the lower corner.

Just one minute passed be-. Bessey scored his second in the 27th minute, when he finished off a low cross from David Pardo, and Gonzalez scored seven minutes later when he gathered a clearance and finished to the lower corner. Mihalopoulos scored a pair of goals before the end of the half off through balls from Matthew Kitsis and Gonzalez, and Amir Dajani scored off a cross from Michael Zembrzuski.

We know our strengths, weaknesses, we know each other like brothers. We look sharper now. Paul Novacovici scored a goal and had an assist for Hampshire, and Jose Cruz added an assist. The loss for Harvard ended a season in. Ali Frantti led the way for R-B, recording 17 kills, seven digs and three aces.

Kelsey Burlini had 22 assists and nine digs, and Jenna Mazur added 11 digs in the win. Blue Division play, , Marian was led by Frankie Taylor with 11 kills and Hannah Davis with six kills and two blocks. Alexa Agoranos won every event she participated in, including the meter freestyle relay, free and free for Jacobs. Nicole Sanchez won the 50 freestyle Great meals go with the great outdoors Deer are on the prowl, and upland game and waterfowl are in the air.

Fall hunting seasons provide ample opportunities to put dinners on the table. I find it hard to eat as early in the morning as you need to before hitting the woods for whitetail. My vehicle does have plenty of edibles stashed for post-hunt energy replenishment.

You might not guess it from looking at me, but I can do without food for a few hours. Post-hunt meals at a hunt club have been memorable on many occasions. Waterfowl hunting is a different matter. Many pit blinds are equipped with gas grills to prepare a hearty breakfast for the shooters.

A complete bacon, eggs, taters and toast breakfast accompanied by steaming cauldrons of hot java is often available in the goose pit. Most goose and duck hunters have their pockets stuffed with two things: extra shells and various sausages, jerkies and fire sticks. Speaking of grilling, some ice fishing outings are more similar to on-water banquets than they are to fishing trips. An ice fishing smorgasbord can kick butt over a football tailgate meal any day of the week.

The most traditional of all outdoors meals is the shore lunch. The art of preparing a shore lunch of batter-fried fish, potatoes and beans is a skill that any fishing guide has to master early in his career.

I once went on a guided muskie trip on the Flambeau River. We had three guides, three fishermen and three custom-made float boats to go down the moving water. My jaw dropped when the guides started the wood fire and put a can of Crisco in a giant pan. It was. Of course, meals on the way to or from an outdoor adventure are usually memorable, too. They are viewing their business more holistically and often, more as multichannel. The more frontto-back functionality that an application can provide, the easier the integration and, usually, the more cost-eective.

For example, e-commerce platforms with order management system capabilities are becoming standard requirements. In other cases, retailers are looking for vendors that oer technology, fulllment and customer service in one. The market drives innovation Since the number and variety of e-commerce and multichannel businesses is also expanding, more vendors are innovating and www. Our numbers speak for themselves. Ai is committed to transactional intelligence.

That means planning, designing and developing ecommerce solutions that deliver big results. Visit us online to learn more: www. One could always sell anything online, of course. But now, more vendors have tools for retailers of specialty verticals such as subscriptions and continuity programs, sharing, and others.

E-commerces rapid growth and increasing importance to the bottom line are making it cost-eective for vendors to include more and more features and functionality in their out of the box applications, making these applications available to smaller retailers within their price range.

As the needs of the big players become the norm, they become standards for smaller merchants, and that demand allows for vendors to invest in turning those features into commodities.

Many aordable applications now contain the tools a small or medium-size retailer needs, right out of the boxsuch as search engine optimization capabilities, advanced search, guided navigation and rich imaging.

Also available is functionality that includes more robust merchandising, promotions, and basic personalization, account management, order management and improved reporting. Even better, retailers are taking advantage of out-of-the-box integrations with popular third-party vendors from marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay to social sites like Facebook to tools such as analytics and ratings and reviews. Exploring other alternatives Many options exist for retailers who want to go big by taking advantage of the capabilities of other storefronts, shopping channels or dropshippers.

Amazon and eBay have always been available as partners for smaller merchants. If auction sites are losing their popularity, there are more online shopping malls for retailers of all types and sizes. The dierence in the costs of doing it yourself vs. Many retailers now work with dropshippers, rather than purchasing inventory and fullling orders themselves. This gives them more product options and requires less of an investment, in part because there are no warehousing costs or pick, pack and ship sta needed.

Of course, the downside is you lose control. Finding the right partner is imperative. Having an international presence is more accessible to smaller merchants now. Before, they were limited to using the postal service. Now, as shipping internationally becomes more common, there are vendors that enable retailers to ship without having to know and deal with all the rules of international shipping, or deal with internal technical integrations.

Today, there is a good deal of competitive intelligence that was www. You cant afford to have your hardwon business collapse if your webmaster gets hit by a bus. Cross-train, communicate, dene your standard operating proceduresand have a Plan B in case Plan A zzles. Know your competition. Dont necessarily compare yourself against Target or Saks.

Find the other smaller merchants that would appeal to your customer. Dene your voice. Having a voice is an smaller merchant advantage. Dont let it go to waste. Look at Woot or ThinkGeek. They arent small and independent anymore, but their personalities shine throughout their site. They take a conversational tone in product descriptions, FAQs and e-mails.

This can help create a loyal following. Find your niche. You cant be all things to all customers. If youre selling T-shirts, curate your products to reect your image.

If youre selling home goods, sell the ones that map to your customer base. Turn small into an advantage. Take advantage of accessible technology; react quickly to changes in the marketplace. Focus on your business needs before your technology. While very important in achieving your goals, dont put the technology cart before the business horse until you know what you need. Best in class might be more than you need. Be realistic when assessing your needs and your limitations, and nd an application that ts where you are now and where you want to be over the next few years.

Tempting as it may seem, dont necessarily go for a Cadillac application when a Ford will do the trick. Keep it simple. Dont over-design or over-engineer. Prepare for reasonable contingencies but dont try to prepare for everything. Complicated systems are hard to implement and hard to maintain. Things change at the speed of light. A year plan will be useless in three years, unless the plan for year two is: reassess the year plan. Plan your multichannel needs for three years out. Then revisit.

Multichannel success requires people, not just technology. Technology is a necessary tool but it is only as good as the people using it. Be sure that you are continuously evaluating, developing and enhancing your team.

There is a wealthor maybe a delugeof information available to anyone who bothers to look for it, and a lot of it is free. Whitepapers, webinars, articles on the Internet, along with tradeshows and conferences, all provide the data and knowledge to everyone, regardless of the size of their company.

Government web sites, such as the U. E-commerce marketplace data-gathering companies such as Hitwise, comScore and Google Trends can provide insightful information, enabling merchants to compare themselves against companies in their vertical and those that are of comparable size.

The key to real success is translating all that data into actions that match your business strategy. They understand how to buy keywords on Google and do so with abandon. SEO is more of a challenge, which requires the comprehensive and ongoing eort to embed keywords into all aspects of the web site. Some of this is a technology issue, some of it is having the right people and right number of them to do the work, analyze the results, test and repeat.

Also, smaller merchants tend not to focus on customer retention and increasing the average order value. Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to people who are jacks of all trades but masters of none.

Basic skills can take a merchant part of the way down the road to success but more expertise is needed to take reach the destination. Customer service is a critical function that is hard to do well. Its costly and most smaller merchants cant aord the comprehensive, high-quality customer service that a larger competitor can.

For example, Bed Bath and Beyond will send a return authorization with every order; Newegg will do so for selected orders those with high return rates ; most smaller retailers cannot aord to do either. Sometimes, the desire to squeeze every dollar out of a sale and to give the minimum amount back results in unfortunate policies that smaller merchants could avoid, including charging a restocking fee and forcing customers to go to the manufacturer with a return after 15 days.

These can hurt customer retention. Performing customer service inhouse provides the opportunity to have a more personalized service, to keep a stores personality, and to better resolve any issues based of sta expertise. Also, it is a great opportunity to up-sell. But handling returns makes it more dicult, logistically. Live chat is becoming increasingly popular with smaller merchants but most of the bigger retailers seem to shy away from it.

Perhaps they have invested so much in an eective customer service function that they dont feel live chat is a worthwhile or necessary tool. Live chat is a helpful tool, but can be expensive if deployed across the whole site and can be annoying to shoppers if it is too intrusive. Create appropriate rules that will initiate chat if a customer is abandoning their cart or they are stuck in Internet Retailer Challenges for the smaller merchants So, while new, cheaper technologies are providing advantages to the smaller merchants that didnt exist previously, there are still challenges.

The sophistication of online shoppers results in their expectation of the same quality user experience, regardless on the size of the merchant. After all, the beauty and the curse of the web is that a small business can appear to be a big one.

Therefore, the customer will not accept a sub-par shopping experience, from the usability and design of the site to the ease and reliability of delivery.

Smaller retailers understand the importance of customer acquisition and spend a lot of money on search www. They worry more about getting the rst customer and compete on price for that customer and dont focus on creating loyal customers. Often, they dont maximize their use of e-mail marketing, which is a very costeective tool with high ROI. Improving loyalty can be laborintensive and smaller merchants often dont have people with the bandwidth or perhaps skills for this.

More eective merchandising, appropriate upsells and cross-sells, promotional strategies, database segmentation, the right e-mail marketing, analysis of demographics, and how to market to them all require honed skills. Smaller merchants often have employees. And give the customer the option to initiate chat at any time. Insight into inventory is another challenge for most smaller merchants.

Their real-time knowledge of their inventory can range from non-existent to not optimal. The smaller the business, the harder it is to have current information on inventory, and often it is a manual process. This is not only an ordering problem but it almost always becomes a customer service problem. Often, the main problem is lack of communication between the front end and the back end.

Another potentially daunting aspect of e-commerce for a smaller merchant is the increasingly complex legal environment of doing business on the web. Dierent states not to mention dierent countries For example, its quick and easy to leverage social media.

Sometimes, smaller merchants can do this better than large companies because they are not so restricted in determining their voice. There is no corporate image to contend with, no large committee of stakeholders to approve every action and no legal department to sign o.

The CEO can just decide and do. Technology, security and legality Smaller merchants also tend not to pay enough attention to their current technologywhether homegrown or purchased. By not keeping up with technology developments and upgrades, merchants systems quickly achieve legacy status, leading to bigger technology investments in the future in order to compete with their peers.

A common failure for smaller merchants is scalability. While their technology can handle their business most of the year without incident, any sudden spike Christmas, the Oprah eect can render their system inoperable and often unable to quickly recover. Another danger of using dated technology is not being up to date with security. Unfortunately, hackers and viruses are up to date, so its imperative that small online merchants provide the same quality of security as any big company.

While big companies have certainly had their own security problems, they understand that it is their responsibility to address security. Sometimes, smaller merchant businesses do not focus on it as much as they should. Often, security tools are included 24 Internet Retailer. By their nature smaller and more nimble merchants can react more quickly to new trends in the e-commerce world. What is PCI-compliance? How to handle customs issues?

In some ways, it is even tougher for the smaller merchants because they dont have legal and tax departments dedicated to guring all this out to their best advantage. Smaller merchants also can get mobile quickly. From mobile marketing to a mobile app to a mobile web site, there are quick and relatively inexpensive options for getting in the game and competing with the big stores.

There also is strength in numbers and retailers can join forces with other smaller companies. There are sites like Etsy that create a common marketplace for companies with niche products.

And there are aliate marketing programs that can help you expand your reach for a fee. Other marketplaces for getting products to the consumers include Amazon and Buy. Given all these options, the temptation might be for an smaller merchant to overestimate the opportunity and the revenue potential of e-commerce growth, and to underestimate the amount of preparation, work and money required. It is important for you to understand what your strategy is, dene your objectives, determine your requirements and create your plan.

Then execute. The advantages of being small Given the availability of stateof-the-art technology, it does not take that much for someone with ambition and an idea to create a viable e-commerce business. Many providers have tools that enable small retailers to get an e-commerce site up in days, making it hard for shoppers to tell if a merchant is a mom-and-pop business or a bigger player.

All were built for success by americaneagle. And in recent years, as Internet connections have gotten faster, and more online activities compete for their time and attention, their expectations for a smooth and speedy experience on your web site have grown.

Yet to compete for their mindshare and loyaltyand their dollars youve taken steps to make your web. But all of this comes at a price it slows down your web site. And that can have serious implications. Also, when your site suers latency, or page-loading delays, due to the number of marketing campaign tags, it can cause friction with your information technology department, which is often charged with improving your sites performance.

They point the nger at you for causing all the slow-downs, and you get frustrated by their inability to make improvements. Maybe theyve even gone so far as to set limits on what campaigns you can. Youve probably also implemented a number of online campaigns to increase awareness of your brand and deliver a more personalized experience. And with each of those campaigns comes 26 Internet Retailer. Furthermore, Google factors web site speed into its ranking algorithm, so a slow-loading site will suer lower ranking in web searches.

The reasons most site owners and marketers havent taken adequate measures may include a decit of time and resources, and budget constraints that prevent them from purchasing tools and technologies. A general lack of understanding about what corrective measures to take is also a contributor. If the scenario above sounds at all familiar, then keep reading.

This article is intended to shed some light on how to address latency, by oering advice on how best to measure site performance and providing some practical steps you can take to improve the speed of your site. If so, you can work with your web designer to overcome some of those problems.

How about dierent connection speeds? Does a signicant portion of your customers live in areas where high-speed broadband connectivity is still limited? If so you might want to tailor your site to themunless they represent only a small portion of your customer base.

Where your visitors are. Are your visitors in your backyard, or across the country? Or even overseas? You should use testing services that will show site performance for various access nodes and paths, so you can tell if your site performs well for local trac but is quite a bit slower for trac coming from other, far-o places. This might indicate that you need to have platform servers in other locations to accommodate those visitors. Peak and off-peak trafc times. What are the variations in trac load that your site can accommodate, and when are you more likely to see peak trac numbers?

If you can pinpoint certain times of day, or even specic dates when trac volumes spike, you can enact temporary adjustments to improve performance during those times while keeping your site intact during other, less busy periods. Look beyond the home page. Dierent features and functionalities will load on dierent pages of your site, so dont assume that the way your home page loads is a good representation of your whole site.

You need to evaluate dierent pages separately, and consider any applications that might be slowing particular pages down, such as user reviews on product pages or too many images on search results pages. Evaluate whether tags are slowing down your site. You can determine if third-party tags, used by external www. Where to look for performance issues In order to accurately measure page load speedand determine the right xthere are a variety of factors to consider: Server-side vs.

You can address the server side by adding more servers or using acceleration technologies, but you dont have a lot of control over client-side issues. For example,. This is not recommended as a permanent x because of the loss of tracking data, but it can show you if tags are contributing to site latency. For example, one of our clients thirdparty tags were aected by Hurricane Irene this past summer, and they saw their web site speed up considerably when they were forced to turn the tags o. There are providers that can evaluate the amount of time tags take to load; and tools that simulate a slow-loading tag, which will give you an idea of the potential drag on your sites performance.

As youre evaluating the areas outlined above, its important to remember that you should never look solely at performance averagesa mistake people often make.

If you only consider average performance you may have a false perception that your site performs just ne, and you can miss out on determining the real problems. As an example from work conducted by web analytics consultancy Semphonic, a look at Site As page transmission speeds shows that the average was 1, Kbps kilobits per secondwhich isnt too bad compared to its competitor sites, which ranged from Kbps to 2, Kbps.

Yet a closer look at Site As site statistics shows that the maximum transmission speed was 1,, and the minimum was 31 Kbps.

This is a pretty big variationand the worst-case scenario is quite a bit slower than the average. So look at the full picture, not just the average. How to strike that balance will differ for every retail site. There are ways to improve performance without sacricing the experience, but its important to rst look at the trade-os people are currently making between functionality and the negative impacts of slow page loads.

When tags are removed, marketers have no idea how well their campaigns are performing and what contribution theyre making to an actual purchase. Before you jump the gun and remove all the third-party tags from your site, strip your product pages of compelling images or add a bunch of servers where they may not be needed, consider the following ve options, which might give you the performance boost you need now.

Optimize page code. This was the number one response people gave on our survey for how theyre addressing latency. Optimizing page code, or shrinking the Javascript, involves merging the separate sets of instructions that tell the page what to do.

It stands to reason that downloading lots of small scripts takes longer than downloading one large script. Marketing professionals might have some trepidation, given that this is in the domain of the I. But quick xes can be done, even by those with limited programming knowledge.

All that needs to be done is to open the Javascript les and copy and paste them all into one le. If this sounds a bit daunting, there are a number of online resources that provide an easy guide to merging les dynamically, such as Smarty. Address site functionality. Site performance will vary from page to page, depending on what applications and functionalities you havesuch as site search, shopping cart, check-out, live chat, etc.

This can be particularly true if you rely on hosted solutions. For example, Internet Retailer Measuring latency: Four steps to acceleration So, given all thats been discussed above, how can you go about speeding up your site beyond some of the simple tweaks you might already have made?

Theres no simple, black and white answerthe most www. Respondents also identied the key steps theyve taken to improve site performance, including optimizing page code, improving performance monitoring and reducing page weight.

There are many ways marketers currently address page load speed, all of which are eective, except the idea of reducing or removing thirdparty tagsa common misperception.

Or, as was the case with one company, perhaps the additions to your installed internal search database grew by volumes over recent years, to a point that it dramatically limited performancein which case, a clean-up of the database would likely speed up performance. Reduce the weight of social media apps. Social media plug-ins, while increasingly popular for their potential viral impact, have recently been identied as a contributor to site latency. For example, in a study we did in conjunction with Catchpoint, we determined by looking at a number of sites that Facebooks Like plug-in stalls page load time by approximately 0.

Optimize third-party tags. Every online marketing application or campaign includes a tiny piece of tracking codeor tagthat sits on your site. There are tags for display ads, paid search, SEO, retargeting, e-mail marketing, aliates, site analytics and more. Each individual tag can take up to one quarter of a second to load.

Our research shows that the average e-commerce web site has more than 20 dierent tags, many on the same page. Most e-commerce sites incorporate ve to seven tags per page. As marketers invest more in online marketing, their growing 30 Internet Retailer. As previously mentioned, many marketers address this problem by signicantly reducing, or even removing altogether, the tags on their site.

One major U. When you take a comprehensive view of your sites performance you can easily nd areas for improvement without having to take drastic measures. However, the downside to removing the tags was that the retailer gave up the ability to track their customers marketing activities, which resulted in an incalculable loss of customer data.

Thats a very dicult trade-o, and one most marketers dont want to make. A better approach to third-party tags is to optimize themsomething you can achieve through use of more sophisticated tag management systems which put all tags in one container, so theyre more easily implemented and managed.

There are several ways to optimize your tags. For example, you can congure your tag management system to perform parallel tag loading, which loads all tags in parallel rather than in sequential order, where slower loading tags can hold up the rest, thus reducing the total time necessary for the page to complete.

You can also set limits so that any tags exceeding a certain amount of time to load can be timed out, and set your system so that only tags. Finally, you should make sure any old tags that are no longer in use are removed from your site. Often, tags get put on a site and are then forgotten, and the accumulation of them can drag down performance. Start at the top. When it comes to how your pages should load, always work your way from. Taking this approach with all the properties on your site including images, content and even tagsdemonstrates to your visitors that you value their time and enables them to get started with their shopping experience right away, rather than waiting for items to load that theyre not even readily able to see.

When you take a comprehensive view of your sites performance and how its measured, you can easily nd areas for improvement without having to take drastic measures that compromise usability and campaign tracking. Whatever you do, be sure to test your sites performance regularly so youre better able to determine when problems arise, and how to address them. Doing so will ensure that you deliver the smooth, streamlined experience your customers expect, and will help strengthen your brand reputation, improve search engine rankings, reduce site abandonment and lead to more purchases.

Monitoring 36 Content Management. As an agency of record, the company can negotiate signicant discounts from multiple advertising channels. Aliate Tractions program managers develop campaigns, creative materials and relationships with publishers and networks.

Real-time updates help web retailers programs become viral through social media. The company attracts and engages aliates through newsletter communications. The company accepts web retailers with a functioning web store with good conversion rates, a technically sound platform and a dedicated program manager.

Commission Junction E. Montecito St. Operating one of the worlds largest aliate networks, Commission Junction provides aliate services, including network access, relationship management, program management, pay-per-call, product catalog, creative services and agency services, as well as tracking and media services. The company partners with agencies to develop and manage performance marketing programs for their clients.

Aliate marketing services include outsourced program management, lead generation, prospect e-mail, search engine marketing, Facebook advertising, targeted display and creative services. Pricing options are performance-based.

Its tracking methodologies feature post-back tracking, or cookie-less, server-to-server tracking for situations where typical cookies are not available, such as the European Union. It also feature thirdparty server-to-server tracking that allows aliates and publishers to piggyback and add their pixels to a campaign using the aliate interface. Epic Media Group Seventh Ave. Its Epic Marketplace network enables brands and advertisers to leverage social media, mobile advertising, premium display targeting, video and rich media.

In , Epic Marketplace migrated to a new cross-channel ad serving platform that seamlessly integrates all Epic Marketplaces distribution channels. The platform has an enhanced attribution analytics engine. Dillon, CTO. The Inuvo platform uses behavioral targeting technology to analyze and predict fraud, rate individual publisher and advertiser trac quality, and provide targeted oer recommendations to its users. The site oers an e-book to help clients new to aliate marketing learn the basics.

Topics include important aliate marketing terms, key steps to a successful launch and how to communicate with aliates.

LinkShare Park Ave. Clients can tailor LinkShares products to their needs using LinkShare Complete to let the company manage their entire aliate marketing channel or LinkShare Exchange to use the companys technology to manage their own program. MTPX allows the companys partners to create and deploy pay-for-performance marketing campaigns.

MTPXs proprietary algorithms optimize based on performance by serving ads with the highest probability to convert. Clicks are priced and routed based on real-time bids and click quality metrics. GECOM is an aliate agency for outsourced aliate marketing management and aliate marketing program services. The agency takes a customized, comprehensive approach to each program it manages. Full outsourced management services include recruitment, activation, optimization, reporting, communication, strategy, design and launch or re-launch, brand name protection, terms and conditions development, program rules enforcement, conict resolution and relationship building.

NetX W. The Aliate Benchmarks study for advertisersthe third such study conducted by its research divisiondiscusses aliates experiences with dierent types of ad performance, site visitor demographics, technology and communication preferences, reasons for joining an aliate program, experiences with emerging technology and other issues.

Main St. Tools include Pepperjam Chat, enabling publishers and merchants to communicate; Pepperjam Recruit, allowing merchants to research and partner with aliates that best t their vertical; and Pepperjam Creative Reporting Tool, which helps merchants and publishers to optimize inventory and test multiple creative links.

The companys integrated package of Internet marketing services includes usability optimization to convert web site visitors into sales, and a combination of aliate marketing, organic and sponsored search marketing to drive more qualied trac to retailers sites. ProtRank oers pay-for-performance pricing, so web retailers pay only when products or services are sold.

Schaaf-PartnerCentric Congress Ave. In , Schaaf Consulting acquired PartnerCentric, which had launched in The company works with coupon and content aliates, as well as paid search and comparison shopping engine aliates. It also recruits and activates new or emerging aliates, detects and reverses the eects of fraud and keeps it merchants informed of aliate channel trends. ShareASale 15 W.

The company oers aliate program guidance and consulting options. ShareASale helps build the foundation for an aliate program, from initial recruiting to uploading product data feed. The company will also review a retailers aliate program and nd areas for improvement.

ShareASale will provide a list of high-potential aliate recruits selected for the retailers niche. Fort Ave. The zanox network generates more than transactions per minute. Services include aliate program and campaign set-up, account management, selection of relevant publishers, payment and billing service, and quality assurance of publisher trac. Research coverage includes business intelligence, communications, customer management, enterprise applications, nancial management, global supply management, human capital management, IT infrastructure, IT security, manufacturing, product innovation and engineering, retail and banking, service management and supply chain management.

Accenture Ltd. Campbell, Group Chief Executive, Technology. The rms research helps clients enter new markets, increase revenue in existing markets, improve operational performance and deliver their products and services more eectively and eciently. Accenture also oers business transformation outsourcing. The rm provides programs in subscription-based lifestyle services and personal protection, points program management and insurance for more than 5, marketing partners worldwide.

Altman Dedicated Direct Academy St. The company helps online retailers meet a range of challenges, including merchandising, development strategy and planning, new product development, catalog and web merchandising planning, and brand identity programs.

Altman oers consulting in the areas of strategy and assessment, merchandising and product development, promotion planning and execution, and customer relationship management. Kingston, MA B2Cpartners. The rm assists web retailers with business planning, vendor scorecards, delivery management and professional stang.

Petersburg, FL CatalinaMarketing. It uses transaction-level insight to help retailers and others develop customized, measurable campaigns to acquire, maximize and retain their most valuable consumers. Catalinas in-store network consists of 50, food, drug and mass merchant locations worldwide, including 26, locations in the U.

It has operations in the U. The company oers expertise in merchandise management in such areas as forecasting and merchandise classication structures.

The company designs fully integrated marketing strategies with syndicated and custom applications in online audience measurement, e-commerce, advertising, search, video and mobile. The companys clients develop and sell consumer goods across multiple channels of distribution, including e-commerce, retail, catalog and wholesale.

Areas of expertise include multichannel integration, change management, product innovation and lifecycle management, process and productivity improvement, customer relationship management, software, inventory optimization, and store and e-commerce applications.

Conversys Inc. Conversys proprietary software and digital toolboxe-mail, social media, mobile and shelf talkershelp web retailers leverage their print publications into online publications through the companys advanced digital publishing application. It then distributes those assets across multiple awareness channels and segments key audiences, while rening reach. Crandall Associates Inc. Online, interactive marketing and social media positions have become an increasingly large portion of its practice.

Areas of expertise include digital, database, online, social media, interactive, directresponse TV, e-commerce, multichannel, direct response, customer relationship management and e-marketing. Crandall Associates recruits for B2B direct marketing corporations and advertising agencies. Deloitte consultants work with web retailing clients to evaluate and resolve complex issues. The rm provides regular industry insights and analysis on a variety of topics, such as surviving retail globalization.

Services include interactive web development and content management, integrated e-commerce, enterprise application development, and targeted e-marketing services. Interactive web development services include an enterprise content management system, customized electronic customer relationship management platforms, corporate intranets and extranets, corporate dashboards and custom software applications.

The agency specializes in contingency-based manager, director, vice president, senior vice president, chief executive ocers, chief nancial ocers, chief information ocers and similar executive searches for transactional multichannel e-commerce. Clients include adidas and The Body Shop.

Altgeld St. Chicago, IL e-tailing. Analyst Lynn Pregont, Partner Afliate. The e-tailing group creates voice of the merchant marketing initiatives for web retailers and others, incorporating proprietary consumer research and merchant outreach.

This includes briefs, white papers and webinars. Experian Hitwise Park Ave. Hitwise measures 25 million web users worldwide, including 10 million in the U. Products and services include Clickstream, custom data and analytics, demographics, lifestyle, rankings and search intelligence.

Clickstream reports on where trac comes from and goes to for a specic web site. Services focus on warehouse management systems; order management systems services; warehousing and distribution; contact center services and benchmarking; forecasting and inventory management; strategic, operational and nancial planning; merger and acquisition services; and freight analysis.

The company also hosts benchmarking share groups and executive forums. First Annapolis Consulting Inc. The rm oers strategic and tactical advice to nancial institutions and service providers in the retail, travel, entertainment and anity group segments.

First Annapolis partners with software and service vendors, including Salesforce. FitForCommerce 40 Highland Ave. Fosina Marketing Group Kenosia Ave. Oerings include e-mail, banner site placement, two-step lead generation and co-registration, landing pages, web site design and e-commerce optimization, and ad and aliate networks management. The agency provides the necessary data services to support retailers legally required opt-out databases. Management Eugene A. Gartner media products help web retailers and others increase response rates, generate leads and strengthen their brand, while its custom newsletter programs reach decision makers with co-branded electronic newsletters that feature objective Gartner research and the retailers messages.

Gartners monthly audio program helps clients stay up-to-date on key issues. Glenbrook Partners Alma St. The rm oers an international e-commerce payment assessment that helps web retailers learn about markets in countries in North America, Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and Latin America. Topics include market size and demographics, and current and emerging online payment methods. Williams Group Ltd. Hubbard St. Williams Group, a global retail consulting company, oers services in strategic planning, branding, multichannel merchandising, research, technology and real estate.

Practice specialties include: strategy and concept development; market research; branding and marketing; multichannel and e-commerce; merchandise management and pricing; operations and productivity; human capital management; real estate and shopping centers; legal services; and urban marketing collaboration.

Kantar Retail First St. The rm oers advice on how to avoid pitfalls and capitalize on opportunities, understand why and how shoppers act as they do and understand the implications of industry shifts for their business. The rm specializes in user testing and user experience optimization. Key Lime Interactive conducts customer user experience research and makes recommendations to its clients.

Methods include usability lab studies, eye tracking, focus groups, analytics review, competitive research and prototype testing. Kurt Salmon Peachtree St. Retail and consumer product services include merchandising and planning, product development and sourcing, supply chain, store operations and I.

Issues include productivity improvement, business growth and inventory eciency. Le Site Inc. The agency seeks to provide clients with a strategy, supported by strong technology and unique design. The strategy phase includes planning, enforcement and surveillance. Le Site builds its technology on the foundations of open source projects. The agency makes the source code it creates available to the open-source community.

Le Site combines web design with new technologies. LexisNexis Park Ave. LexisNexis provides its clients with access to billions of searchable documents and records from more than 45, legal, news and business sources.

The companys Total Solutions oering provides products and services to address specic customer needs. JM Consultants audits UPS and Federal Express invoices and helps web retailers and other clients negotiate more competitive agreements. LJM Consultants oers a range of third-party logistics services, focused on driving down shipping costs. The rm audits UPS and Federal Express invoices with a point auditing engine, recovers refunds, identies rate improvements and negotiates better rate and accessorial discounts.

The rm charges a percentage of the money saved as a fee. Lyons Consulting Group W. Superior St. The rms e-commerce technology oerings include platform selection, search engine marketing and optimization, customer relationship management, mobile applications, enterprise resource planning and business intelligence integration.

Other services include web design consultation on platform, user interface, technology, strategy, e-mail marketing, banner advertising and site analytics.

Partner Anne Brouwer, Sr. Partner Mara Devitt, Sr. The company evaluates and optimizes retail concepts, strategies and businesses, including feasibility studies of start-ups and new concepts; performance improvement for existing concepts; and due diligence activities for mergers and acquisitions. The company also develops retail concepts and formats.

Molecular Inc. Watertown, MA Molecular. Service oerings include digital strategy, experience design, engineering and project management. Digital marketing services include content management, data and analytics, emerging interactions and mobile strategies and applications. Digital strategy applications include behavioral segmentation, and business case and roadmap development. Other areas of expertise include market research and intelligence; marketing automation; social media; and search engine marketing and optimization.

Navigo Consulting Group Inc. The companys resources, category expertise and infrastructure help clients use transportation strategically. Navigo specializes in cost reduction of parcel freight and mail services, principally through supplier contract negotiations. Its service is contingency-based with no upfront costs.

Phase 2 International Alakea St. The company hosts business software from IBM and Microsoft in its data center, oering a monthly subscription plan where the client only pays for a peremployee, per-application. The subscription includes all licenses, storage, bandwidth, and technical support and training.

SR Research, a research company run by retailers for the retail industry, focuses on technology. The company covers store operations, merchandise optimization, cross-channel and multichannel issues, and private label management. RSR Research delivers benchmark reports on the state of the industry and analysis of breaking news. RSR also oers custom research for niche markets or applications. All the companys research is available to qualied retailers and their business partners.

Metropolitan Plaza, Millcreek Blvd. Graves, President Ned N. Sedlak, VP. Other services include strategy development, distribution network optimization, workforce optimization, operations assessment and productivity improvement, and information systems selection and implementation. The organization has more than member companies and focuses on challenges such as Web 2.

Sloan Center for Internet Retailing A. Management Donna L. The center includes the UCR eLab, a virtual research lab and online panel for the study of online consumer behavior; and the eLab Global Panel, a community of Internet users who participate in Sloan Center-conducted Web surveys and experiments about consumer behavior in the digital world.

SmartLogin places a retailers logo on the consumers personal computer desktop, Internet browser and quick launch toolbar. When consumers click on the retailers logo, they are automatically logged into the retailers application with no user name or password required. It was an early adopter of visionbased three-dimensional eye-tracking systems and has, since its founding in , installed more than 4, systems worldwide.

Its major elds of expertise are eye and gaze tracking systems in retailing, research and industry, high-speed image processing, and eye tracking and registration applications in ophthalmology. Sophelle oers two proprietary testing products: Accelerator, which increases the eciency of testing many retail applications, including e-commerce and point-of-sale; and Continuous Quality, which monitors the web sites end-user experience to help uncover and resolve purchasing obstacles.

Functional and user interface testing, and performance monitoring are included. The company, founded in , operates a nationwide network of mystery shoppers who review e-commerce sites. Retailers that achieve a high level of service earn a seal to display on their web sites. Tobii Technology Inc N. Washington St. The company provides eye tracking components to e-commerce businesses and companies in health care, diagnostics, vehicle safety, gaming, and computer manufacturing.

It also oers a range of products with its patented eye tracking technology to various industries. The technology can be used to create handsfree computers. Front St. Philadelphia, PA TrinityInsight. Services include consulting on e-commerce strategic planning, search marketing and optimization, web analytics management, and multivariate and usability testing services. Trinity helps retailers identify, prioritize and execute opportunities within the technology, marketing and usability aspects of their e-commerce store.

Trinity will dene the tests, recruit respondents, administer the test and analyze the results. Usability Sciences Corp. The company uses a proprietary rating system for the usability of rich media featuressuch as the ability to zoom in on products, and audio and videoand combines it with analytic data to generate reports and recommended actions for clients.

Focus groups and eld studies also are employed. User Centric Inc. Its consulting services include usability testing, eye tracking, expert evaluations, remote user testing, user-centered design and online surveys. User Centric uses a special monitor with infrared technology to capture the location of the eyes while looking at stimulus, oering insight into the processes involved in user interaction with computer interfaces, physical products and printed material.

Valtech N. Dallas Pkwy. Services include e-business consulting, global sourcing, I. E-commerce oerings include online marketing, search engine optimization, the development of primary applications, web sites, Internets, intranets, extranets and enterprise portals powered by a content management system. Valtech starts with standard software, and then tailors it to its clients needs. The companys core oering is proprietary research and analytics on the attitudes, behaviors and usage patterns of mobile users.

Based on this research, Yankee Group provides data insights and advice to its web retailing clients and others. Consulting services include market and technology prioritization, customer segmentation, competitive benchmarking, market education and market services.

Palm St. Features include multiple storefront templates, coupon manager, related items, quantity discounts, multiple image upload and views, advanced reporting and sales tools, export to major shopping portals, and e-marketing and promotion tools, title and Meta tags, and upload of categories and products. Fluid Inc. Fluids products also use existing data, such as analytics, sales volume and customer reviews to automate merchandising strategies. Fry Inc. Its Open Commerce platform enables retailers to develop online stores and create or expand their e-commerce businesses.

Fry provides a range of services for retailers and consumer goods manufacturers to help enhance their direct-to-consumer channels across the retail value chain, including strategic planning, creative design, technical development, managed hosting services and ongoing operational support.

The company has expertise in consumer electronics, consumer products, entertainment media such as music and video, software, telecommunications, health care and security. San Francisco, CA Scene7. The companys creative services group oers a range of production services including image authoring for dynamic rendering, dynamic image production for zoom and spin, template creation for personalization, viewer skin development, custom reporting and targeted e-mail services.

San Jose, CA Adobe. The Professional Edition is for creating and publishing interactive content for a variety of marketplaces and devices, such as the iPad, Android and BlackBerry Playbook tablets. The companys Intelligent Internet Platform is made up of nearly , service points, deployed in 72 countries and spanning most of the networks within the Internet.

The Akamai Shopper prioritization helps online retailers identify and prioritize shoppers in the purchase funnel based on customer-dened criteria, such as active login, active shopping cart or visiting history. ARS Interactive N. Smith St. RS Interactive is a full-service interactive marketing agency for retailers with online and mobile sites.

The companys services include marketing, advertising, design, technology and product content. ARS Interactive on-demand product content management technology enables retailers to create, catalog, standardize, modify, import and export content. It works with a retailers marketing sta to create information, descriptions and images for selling products.

Automatic Query Guidance clusters results into relevant product groups. When buyers select a category, AQC automatically suggests further products through the clustering of complementary items. Autonomy also creates customized customer proles based on customer interaction with the site. BlueKey Inc. Its system features web-based password protection, a robust page editor, user accounts with multiple levels of access and editorial review, and an events calendar with Google map integration.

BlueKeys content management system also comes with other advanced tools, including home page content, and event and news teaser tools.

Brafton Inc. The companys editorial sta writes news, blogs and articles for business web sites, paired with in-house search engine optimization and social media marketing expertise to help customers build their brands online. Custom articles are written by in-house journalists and delivered automatically to a retailers web site daily through e-mail, social media and search engines. CDNetworks Co. DNetworks is a Seoul, South Koreabased content delivery network.

Founded in , CDNetworks has subsidiaries in the U. It provides a suite of technology for video streaming, large-volume le downloads and image caching. The companys Web Performance Suite integrates a range of web performance tools to accelerate web content delivery and application performance.

CDNetworks also oers dynamic web and network acceleration software. Morrisville, NC ChannelAdvisor. The ChannelAdvisor Webstores application oers product updating capability. When an online retailer makes changes to a product in ChannelAdvisor, or the quantity is automatically updated based on sales in another channel, the changes are reected on their storefront more quickly, ensuring that web store shoppers are viewing the most up-to-date and accurate product information.

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