AutoSmart USA Opens Internet New Car Showroom At Wholesale Prices
26 February 1999
AutoSmart USA Opens America's First Internet New Car Showroom At Wholesale Prices
JERSEY CITY, N.J.--Feb. 26, 1999--AutoSmart USA, Inc. a division of Interactive Multimedia Network, Inc., (OTC BB: IMNI) offers a unique concept for car and truck buyers. The opportunity to purchase or lease the new car or truck of their choice for as low as 2% over factory invoice.
The AutoSmart USA web site ( www.autosmartusa.com ) having recently gone online and with the construction of their first walk-in Internet new car showroom in the South Florida market almost finished; (the paint is still wet), AutoSmart USA has jumped to the front of the line with new car and truck sales. The pending sales awaiting credit approval from the first week have a gross retail value of more than $400,000.
As one of the world's first full-service Internet web sites devoted to the retail sale of cars, light trucks, SUV's and vehicle accessories, www.autosmartusa.com will allow a consumer to directly purchase a new vehicle without any of the haggling or hassle historically associated with the car-buying process. Consumers can go to autosmartusa.com and with the click of their mouse, the process begins to secure the lowest possible price for the new car or truck with the specific options requested and then proceed to finalize the sale including financing and leasing within minutes.
There are currently thousands of leads pouring into the marketing offices of IMNI from prime exposure in IMNI's premier family Internet web site: www.shop-the-net.com, which has been online for almost five years and sells products and services worldwide. Leads are also coming in from animated Internet banners being seen on major web sites and the registration of www.autosmartusa.com to all search engines, directories and news groups that support the net.
The major thrust of their marketing effort will begin early next month with the broadcast of the first interactive TV home shopping variety show featuring AutoSmart USA. This will be seen beginning in South Florida on ABC, UPN, WB, FOX, TCI Cable and others, before being rolled out to the rest of the country. IMNI wants to take advantage of the Tri-County market, specifically Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, served by the walk-in location, which ties directly into the potential viewing audience for the TV show of approximately five million consumers.
IMNI has also developed an Associates Program designed to boost the Internet exposure of AutoSmart USA by placing a hyper-linked icon in potentially thousands of web sites across the web. This program is similar to those utilized by many of the retail Internet sites that have become household words all across America such as Amazon.com, www.amazon.com, (AMZN), and Music Boulevard, www.musicboulevard.com This associates program will pay the linked web site a commission for each car or truck that is sold based on tracking information. There are currently hundreds of web sites that are on a waiting list to begin their association with AutoSmart USA. The program has been offered on a limited basis but will explode onto the net by mid-second quarter.
To support the traffic coming to the AutoSmart USA web site, IMNI has configured a Sun Microsystems Unix-based Internet server that can process in excess of one million registrations per day.
Safe Harbor Disclosure - This Press Release contains or incorporates by reference "forward-looking statements," including certain information with respect to plans and strategies of Interactive Multimedia Network, Inc. and AutoSmart USA, Inc. For this purpose, any statements contained herein or incorporated herein by reference that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the forgoing, the words "believe(s)," "anticipate(s)," "plan(s)," "expect(s)" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. There are a number of important factors that could cause actual events or actual results of IMNI to differ materially from these indicated by such forward-looking statements.
