Horn Group Announces Four New eCommerce Clients as Holiday Shopping Season Gets Underway

Agency Adds eBates, Cardstore, SquareTrade and WhiteFence to its Roster of Online Retailers

SAN FRANCISCO - Dec. 2, 2009 - Horn Group, Inc., a top digital communications agency in the U.S., has added four new clients to their online retail clientele signaling a shift in consumer sentiment towards spending. The new clients include:

• CardStore.com - a custom holiday and photo cards e-retailer based in Berkeley, Calif.
• Ebates.com - a leader in online cash back shopping based in San Francisco, Calif.
• SquareTrade - the largest independent warranty provider, based in San Francisco
• WhiteFence - a free service that helps people find the best deals on home television, internet, telephone, electricity and gas services based in Houston, TX

"The holiday season is the most important time of year for our business, so it was the right time for us to bring on a new agency," said Marty Reed, Cardstore.com president and CEO.  "Horn Group demonstrated the right mix of creative thinking and social media chops to help us reach our demographic and interact with consumers in a meaningful way."

"eCommerce is one of those segments that has survived the recession and appears to be gaining momentum," said Horn Group's president and CEO Sabrina Horn. "The convenience of shopping online and the price/performance that many of these sites offer are drawing more shoppers than physical stores." 

Horn Group has added new team members in its San Francisco office to support this growth in online retail clientele. The firm is AOR for each of these four companies and is providing integrated social media, public relations and interactive design services.

Forrester Research Inc. predicts that online retail sales in November and December will grow 8 percent this year to $44.7 billion.  According to Forrester's US Online Holiday Retail Forecast, 2009 (November 2009), among 4,000 online consumers surveyed, 94 percent have made a purchase online in the past three months and plan to do the same for the holidays.  According to the report, "despite the lingering effects of the recession, the online space remains the retail industry's growth engine."

About Horn Group, Inc.
Horn Group is a digital communications firm specializing in public relations, social media marketing and interactive design.  The company has been recognized a best mid-sized agency for four consecutive years in PRSourceCode's annual Top Tech Communicators survey; has won several awards for interactive web design and video production; and is frequently noted as a Best Employer and Best Place to Work. The company was founded by Sabrina Horn in 1991 and is based in San Francisco and New York.