Europe’s leading shopping platform launches new sales structure to further development of international e-commerce partnerships

Munich, 28th July, 2008 – Harald Schiffauer, 38, takes on newly-created role of “Sales Director E-Commerce Europe” at the Ciao GmbH, the leading shopping and consumers’ opinions portal of Europe*, (i.e. ciao.co.uk in Great Britain). Schiffauer joins Ciao from Pangora, the provider of product search and price comparison technology, where he was “Director Shop Business“.

In his new function Schiffauer is responsible for the pan-European development of the e-commerce partnerships for all Ciao platforms: in Great Britain (ciao.co.uk), Germany (ciao.de), France (ciao.fr), Italy (ciao.it), Spain (ciao.es), the Netherlands (ciao-shopping.nl) and Sweden (ciao.se).

Apart from the cross-national support of existing shopping partnerships, the main responsibility of his position includes the development of Ciao’s European-wide network of online merchants. The 38-year-old leads a 26-person team across seven countries and reports directly to Stephan Musikant, Managing Director of Ciao GmbH.

Stephan Musikant, Managing Director of Ciao GmbH: “With Harald Schiffauer we have brought on board a distinct expert in the field of e-commerce. With his long-standing experience in the international shopping distribution industry, he is the ideal sales executive to help customers understand that the high quality information contained in our consumers’ reviews portal is an essential differentiation from the pure price comparison portals in the market.“

Before Ciao, Schiffauer worked at Pangora GmbH since 1999. In September 2001, the business school graduate lead the company’s international commercialisation strategy in Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy, as well as launched its technical support network for more than 4,500 online shops. In the beginning of 2004, Schiffauer took over the management of the Pangora subsidiaries in Paris and Milan. At the end of 2006, he was appointed as member of the management of the Pangora GmbH.

Schiffauer joins one of the most successful European online companies in the area of e-commerce business and user generated content. Ciao is Europe’s most popular shopping and consumers’ opinions portal with a multi-million strong community, that provides online shoppers “real experiences from real consumers“ for over four million products and services.

About Ciao GmbH

Ciao GmbH is Europe’s leading provider of consumer and price comparison websites*. The firm operates shopping communities in seven countries and languages (ciao.co.uk, ciao.de, ciao.fr, ciao.it, ciao.es, ciao-shopping.nl, ciao.se). Internet users will find more than four million products and more than five million independent product evaluations and reports of people’s experiences in over 20 categories, such as cars, computers, digital cameras, finances, mobile phones, travel, electronics or foodstuffs. Ciao is ranked as the most popular shopping website in Europe*.

Ciao GmbH was founded in Munich in 1999 and since 2005 it has belonged to Greenfield Online, Inc. (NASDAQ: SRVY). The headquarter of Ciao GmbH is in Munich. Further offices are located in London, Paris, Timisoara (Romania) and Wroclaw (Poland).

Photographs of Harald Schiffauer are available online as download: www.ciao-group.com/fileadmin/media/bilder/harald_schiffau...

Further information including digital material to provide illustration can be found at: www.ciao-group.com or www.greenfield.com/.

Alejandra Rojo
PR and Marketing Manager UK
Phone: +44 (0)207 324 0025
Fax: +44 (0)207 324 0073
E-Mail: alejandra.rojo@ciao-group.com
Web: www.ciao-group.com
www.ciao.co.uk

Ulrike Piesch
Ciao GmbH
PR Manager Europe
Phone: +49 (0) 89 25551 796
Fax: +49 (0) 89 25551 700
E-Mail: ulrike.piesch@ciao-group.com
Web: www.ciao-group.com
www.ciao.de

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This release was published on openPR.