News Release -- 2000

BrethrenPress.com opens its e-doors
in time for the Holiday Season

December 1, 2000, Elgin, Il

BrethrenPress.com, the Church of the Brethren’s first full-functioning e-commerce Web site, opened its virtual doors today for business.

Development of this site, located at www.brethrenpress.com, was begun early this year by Brethren Press, the Church of the Brethren General Board’s publishing house, and eMountain Communications, the electronic ministry of the Church of the Brethren Benefit Trust.

Project directors for this venture have been Russ Matteson, Brethren Press’ manager of marketing and sales, and Nevin Dulabaum, eMountain Communi-cation’s director and Brethren Benefit Trust’s director of Communications and Information Services.

BrethrenPress.com features a dynamic data structure that provides customers with advanced search queries of 1,400 products.

“Our customers will find the site easy to navigate, allowing them to quickly find what they're looking for,” Matteson said.

The site provides a thumbnail image of each product along with title, author name, description, ISBN, and Brethren Press catalog number. Other features allow customers to review their previous purchases, receive e-mail verification of each purchase, and send purchased items to alternative shipping addresses.

“This last feature is particularly useful for people who want to purchase Brethren Press gifts during the holiday season and have them shipped directly to their loved ones,” Matteson said.

Today’s formal launching of BrethrenPress.com was marked by a celebration held at the Church of the Brethren General Offices in Elgin, Ill. General Board and Brethren Benefit Trust staff, along with staff from other church agencies located at the offices, celebrated with cake and a demonstration of BrethrenPress.com.

Although today marks the official opening of BrethrenPress.com, finishing touches are still being completed. While the online store will now accept purchases with the use of an existing Brethren Press account or will allow visitors to open a Brethren Press account by using easy-to-follow steps, credit card purchases will be available in the near future. In addition, about 25 percent of Brethren Press’ resources still need to be added to the site. That work is expected to be completed by Jan.1. Other enhancements scheduled in the coming months include detailed information, such as product reviews.

“eMountain has been a valuable partner in this project,” said Matteson. “When posed with difficult challenges, eMountain staff found unique solutions that have led to a user-friendly browsing experience for people shopping online for Brethren Press products.”

“It’s a proud day for eMountain Communications,” said Dulabaum. “The development of this secure e-commerce site marks the first of what we anticipate will be many such sites to be developed by our staff and hosted on our Internet servers. It is particularly pleasing, however, that this first e-commerce project is the result of a collaborative initiative between Brethren Benefit Trust and the Church of the Brethren General Board.”

For more information or to be placed on a Brethren Press.com mailing list to learn of the latest updates, please write to BrethrenPress_gb @brethren.org To learn more about eMountain’s services, go to www.emountain.net or call 800-250-5757.