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Esri Supplies Data and Services

Esri has launched a newly upgraded Web site, www.esribis.com, that integrates Internet technology with data and mapping from Esri. This destination site supplies information and interactive features that serve businesses of all sizes and types.

Esri GIS software and Esri BIS data work together to enhance a site's capabilities. Visitors to these enabled Web sites can quickly and easily access and retrieve data, visualize data in map form, and analyze data for critical decision making. Users can now instantly access and map the industry's best demographic data, estimates, forecasts, and segmentation from the vast repository of Esri BIS databases.

As the first of several phased improvements, this upgrade of www.esribis.com offers improved reporting and mapping functionality. The site also offers subscribers new interactive benefits. They can save and organize their sites, reports, and report templates. This capability eliminates the need to re-create report templates each time the site is accessed; allows reports to be edited and rerun; and lets users set and save report preferences. Subscribers will receive discounts for reports not included in the subscription. These features will be particularly useful to users who run many demographic data reports and maps and who must access the most current information quickly.

For $995 per year, the basic subscription allows users unlimited access to a dozen of the most widely used data reports and maps during the subscription period. Users can customize a basic subscription by adding additional reports and maps to the package.

Using these reports and maps, subscribers to the basic package can develop many types of marketing applications such as customer profiling, territory analysis, competitor analysis, and site evaluation and selection analysis. Site maps included in the basic subscription can display sites and radii along with landmarks such as highways, major roads, rivers, and county boundaries. These maps can be wonderful reference tools for illustrating marketing analyses such as demographic profiles of current and potential trade areas, traffic studies, or evaluations of current and potential sites.

In addition to the reports and maps supplied by the basic subscription package, the premium subscription provides 15 additional demographic and business data reports and thematic mapping for $2,500 per year. These additional reports include more demographic and expenditure data reports that can be used to create detailed demographic profiles and used for other marketing applications such as customer profiling, trade area analysis, site evaluation and selection, territory analysis, and competitive analysis. The premium subscription can be further customized with the selection of other data reports.

Premium subscribers can also create presentation-quality thematic maps for marketing applications using any of the demographic data variables posted on the site. For example, users can create thematic maps that illustrate trade area data variations and show patterns and trends more clearly than the same data presented in tabular format. Users can also customize these maps by choosing the number of breaks, the color scheme, and shading for geographic areas such as states, counties, census tracts, and block groups.

Users can also purchase demographic data reports and maps a la carte using a credit card and receive reports in minutes. The cost is based on the number of sites and areas selected. Most reports cost between $40 and $50 with discounts offered for additional reports purchased for the same location. For example, by purchasing a Market Profile and a Housing Profile for the same location, a user can receive a 50 percent discount off the standard price for the Housing Profile.

Another new feature of the Esri BIS Web site is the Web-enabled Electronic America data catalog. This complete listing of all the demographic data variables available from Esri BIS allows users to browse and search for the most up-to-date demographic variables. Because data is posted to the site as soon as it is updated, this site provides the most current and accurate data available. Easy-to-use search capabilities in Electronic America simplify the hunt for the demographic variables that answer marketing applications questions. Data chosen from the Electronic America catalog can be delivered on DVD, CD-ROM, or 3.5-inch disk. File formats include delimited or fixed field text, Microsoft Excel, dBASE, and other popular formats. Visit www.esribis.com to explore the data and services available.