German Internet Prize: Fahrrad.de among the finalists

Suited to fahrrad.de, this years running theme was “SME Interactive”. “We are not aiming to be a shop. We create more interaction between users of our site and our online content. Blogs and forums have allowed us to achieve this”, said René Marius Köhler, CEO of internetstores AG. The fahrrad.de management team recognized early that Web 2.0 means online stores should offer more than pages of static content.

Together with NETFORMIC GmbH, fahrrad.de completely revised its internet presence in Spring 2007. Since the re-launch of the web site, the product range has been supplemented with active content, including photos, videos, and Q&A from customers. This diverse information has been supplemented with customer product reviews integrated into the shop. The method of marketing “from customer to customer” has added credibility to the site. Also a new forum of 7,200 members is proving successful for the customers experience. The service will roll out in full over time and is a part of internetstores AG plan to provide a creditable cycling resource with its store.

A look at the number of candidates in this years prize shows how important the German Internet Prize is becoming. 300 nominations were received by Bitkom Industry Association during the nomination phase. “This year we didn't quite rank with the top three, the achievements of these companies are incredible, internetstores AG is honoured to be associated with this group of 6. It's a great way to measure our efforts each year when compared against the industry”, enthused René Marius Köhler.

After winning the “Business-to-Consumer Online Shop of the Year 2007” and taking the “Shop Usability Award 2008” in the category of Best Product Presentation, this was another success for the young e-commerce company. Köhler concluded, “All our success is well earned, it's the result of relentless hard work and great collaborations with our partners including NETFORMIC GmbH”.