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Date Posted: 08:23:09 01/27/03 Mon
Author: Dal Coltello
Subject: Uproar at Ruby Lane

News rule at Ruby Lane causing uproar from dealers. Posted by management Jan. 24th. 2003 -

Rather than make a new policy of "all listings on RL have to be exclusive to RL", we have decided to structure this as a new promotional program. This will address the major concerns that have been posted on the boards regarding exclusive listings:

- participation in this new promotional program is optional, and available to any shop owners that choose to take advantage of it

- shop owners who may eventually want to participate in this promotional program can take as long as they need to make changes on other web sites so they can participate in the program

- shop owners who choose to list on multiple web sites can continue to do so and also keep their listings on Ruby Lane

To take advantage of this promotional program, shop owners can, if they choose, sign an exclusive listing agreement with Ruby Lane stating that they will list their items that qualify for Ruby Lane (antiques, collectibles, handcrafted art, fine art) only on Ruby Lane, with the exception of items that are being auctioned online.

Shop owners signing up for the exclusive listing promotional program will receive the following benefits:

1. In a search, items from exclusive shops will be listed first, before items from non-exclusive shops. Click rates will be used within the 2 groups to determine item listing orders, as they are now.

2. The shop directories will be split into two parts, first listing the exclusive shops, then listing the non-exclusive shops.

3. A note will be added to the search results, after the rating image and shop name, for example: (gold shop) My Antiques - Exclusively on Ruby Lane.

4. Only exclusive shops will be eligible for free placement on the Hot Shop lists. All shops will be eligible for paid placement on the Hot Shop lists when this feature becomes available (it may be renamed to Featured Shops, or something like that to avoid confusion with "Hot").

5. Only exclusive shops will have their listings sent to Yahoo Classifieds & Froogle. Our reasoning is that if a shop is listing at multiple sites, their items will probably already be in these special search engines.

We will use periodic automated and manual spot-checks to ensure that shop owners signing the agreement are honoring their promise to list exclusively on Ruby Lane, and will close shops that break the agreement. Shop owners can appeal this decision to the Shop Council, as with all shop closings. A shop owner may enter or leave the exclusive listing promotional program at any time.

We have reviewed this new promotional program and our original program with legal professionals, and they have told us that both are acceptable and common business practices. Our reason for changing the program from our original "Rule #4" is to accomodate as many shop owners as we can, based on many of your concerns from past discussions, while continuing to pursue our goal of making Ruby Lane an interesting, unique, "must see" Internet shopping site.

It will take some time for us to implement the software changes needed to support this new promotional program, and we will officially announce the program to all shops on the boards, via an email, and on our site (the FAQ) when we are closer to launch.

Jim

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