E-commerce Pioneer Launches New Venture, Helping Small Business Succeed Online

Kanth Gopalpur, one of the earliest practitioners of ecommerce and former head of ecommerce at Powell's Books (http://www.powells.com) and Djangos.com (http://www.djangos.com)has launched a new company named Monsoon Retail Development Systems to enable small to medium-sized retailers design, implement, and perfect e-commerce systems that will significantly increase their overall corporate growth and profitability.

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E-commerce Pioneer Launches New Venture, Helping Small Business Succeed Online

Contact:    Kanth Gopalpur - President, Monsoon Retail LLC
E-mail:    kanth@monsoonretail.com
Phone:    (503) 516-7856 FAX: (503) 243-1416

Portland, OR - October 1, 2002

One day in 1993, when the Internet was in its infancy, Kanth Gopalpur, a clerk at Powells technical bookstore, had what seemed like a minor inspiration. Kanth often took orders by phone and e-mail from customers all over the United States and the world, and thought that perhaps an FTP site, allowing customers to browse Powells inventory, would be a good idea.

Keep in mind, in 1993 Amazon.com was only a gleam in Jeff Bezos eye, shopping carts and search engines werent commonplace tools, and online credit card processing was science fiction. Nevertheless, recruiting a tech-savvy co-worker to build the infrastructure, Kanth envisioned, formulated and developed a full-fledged e-commerce system, and sat back to see what would happen.

A decade later, and without a dime of outside funding, Powells.com has become one of the nations leading online booksellers, with over a million titles, hundreds of thousands of registered users, and annual revenues that account for a third of Powells overall business.

Not such a minor inspiration after all...

Having lead the development of Powells.com, and having pioneered online retail for new & used books, Kanth decided to try his hand at music. He joined the executive management team of Djangos.com in 2000, and within one year of launch, Djangos was the leading retailer of used CDs and DVDs on the net.

With the eventual sale of Djangos.com, Kanth decided to take his expertise and use it in a way that could benefit small and mid-sized retailers and help them improve, not only sales, but also their profitability in e-commerce. Having gathered a team of professionals who worked with him at both Powells.com and Djangos, Kanth launched his own company - Monsoon Retail Development Systems (www.monsoonretail.com) in July of 2002.

Monsoon Retail is dedicated to helping small to medium-sized retailers design, implement and perfect e-commerce systems that will significantly increase their overall corporate growth and profitability." Kanth says. We believe that the Internet is a vibrant new retail neighborhood for small businesses, and we have the know-how and experience to help smaller stores succeed side-by-side with big-box retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart. Monsoon draws upon extensive industry knowledge, connections and experience and utilizes a unique, results-driven approach that preserves both financial integrity and client companies core values."

With a long-standing reputation for promoting brass-tacks business practices, Kanth has been a regular speaker at conferences of Internet professionals, consistently providing a counterpoint to the pie-in-the-sky speculation of most e-commerce business analysts. This determination to do things differently has given Kanth a unique perspective and has positioned him as one of the most trustworthy and down-to-earth leaders of the dot-com era. Through Monsoon, Kanth hopes to help traditional retailers, who have been rightly skeptical of the Internet, to explore the benefits of e-commerce in a low-impact, cost-effective way.

With several businesses already signed up and under development, Monsoon is expanding its client base rapidly, and hopes to help retailers all over the country expand their presence online.

For more information, visit www.monsoonretail.com or call Kanth Gopalpur at the number below.

Kanth Gopalpur         
President, Monsoon Retail LLC.

E-mail:   kanth@monsoonretail.com
Phone:   (503) 516-7856
FAX:       (503) 243-1416

Monsoon Retail Development Systems LLC
1104 NW 15th Ave. Suite 350
Portland, OR    97209