Twingle

An Online Auctioning Company Case Study

Twingle Study

Case

Case Written by Xavier Azcue for the TIMES (Tournament In Management and Engineering Skills) Project.

Special thanks to: Marthe Rodrigues, Diogo Pires, Joo Barata, Paulo Melancia, Francisco Guimares, Rui Guerra, Joo Doroana and Lus Alves.

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Table of Contents

Company Overview and Business Model ............................................................... 4 Market Segmentation and Client Profile ................................................................ 7 Twingle Auction Process ........................................................................................ 8 Online Auctions...................................................................................................... 9
The boom in online trading ......................................................................................................... 9 Ecommerce.................................................................................................................................. 9 Future Forecasts .......................................................................................................................... 9 Advantages and Disadvantages ................................................................................................ 10

Evolutionary Growth ............................................................................................ 12 Advertising and Distribution ................................................................................ 13 Macro Environment ............................................................................................. 16
Political-Legal ............................................................................................................................ 16 Economical ................................................................................................................................ 16 Social ......................................................................................................................................... 17 Technological............................................................................................................................. 17

Micro Environment .............................................................................................. 18

Main Direct Competitors ........................................................................................................... 18 Market / Competitors Analysis ................................................................................................. 20 Reliability and Quality Service: .............................................................................................. 21

The Future ........................................................................................................... 22

Credibility Problem.................................................................................................................... 22 Future Possibilities .................................................................................................................... 22 International Expansion ......................................................................................................... 22

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Buy Now Option ................................................................................................................. 23 Other Possibilities .................................................................................................................. 23

The Meeting ........................................................................................................ 24 Financial Data ...................................................................................................... 26

Balance Sheet (31/12/09) ......................................................................................................... 26

Annexes ............................................................................................................... 27
Annex 1: Data Relative to January 2010 ................................................................................... 27 Annex 2: Data Relative to December 2009 ............................................................................... 28 Annex 3: Data Relative to November 2009 ............................................................................... 29 Annex 4: Clicks Discriminated by Originating Website ............................................................. 30 Annex 5: Registries Discriminated by Originating Website ...................................................... 30 Annex 6: Sales Discriminated by Originating Website .............................................................. 30 Annex 7: Privacy Policy .............................................................................................................. 31

Company Overview and Business Model

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Company Overview and Business Model

Twingle online auctions is a Portuguese company, created in April 2009 and is situated in So Domingos de Rana of the Cascais area. The idea behind the business came from a group of childhood friends Rui Guerra, Joo Doroana and Lus Alves who despite not having any major previous knowledge about the business model, desired to create an innovative project, differentiable from the existing competition. Being one of the most recent online auction websites, Twingle brought to Portugal a new and innovative concept of online auctions of a wide range of products (from gift certificates to plasma televisions). All products are of Twingles responsibility; they are new products and sold with warranty guaranteed by Twingle. The new concept introduced to Portugal arises from the fact that buyers end up paying practically nothing for the products themselves, what they do spend money on is bids. Each bid costs 0.20 and must be purchased before being used. Each bid adds a variable number of seconds to the final time of the auction and 0.01 to the products final value. The final buyer ends almost always pays less for the product than what it costs for Twingle. So technically in the sale of the product Twingle loses money. However, all those who attempted to buy the product and didnt manage to usually end up losing most of the money they spent purchasing the bids, which is where Twingle makes money. If the user does not manage to buy an item which he bid for (which means he/she got outbid by some other user), the bids used while attempting to buy the product will then be converted into discount vouchers. Discount vouchers have a limited time period of 30 days to be used and can only be used as a discount on the price of purchased items; they cannot be used to buy new bids nor to pay for shipping expenses. For example, a person buys 500 bids for 100 and uses them without winning any product. Those 100 will be converted into discount vouchers worth 100. The person then buys mores bids and wins a product less than 30 days later, with a final bidding price of 80 (store price could be over 500). That means that to buy the product the person will only pay for the bids he/she used. 80 of the 100 discount vouchers will be used to pay for the final

Company Overview and Business Model

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price of the product, leaving the person with discount vouchers with a value 20 . Nevertheless, most times a client does not manage to use his/her discount vouchers. Therefore Twingles revenues come from: product sales and bids. The product sale minus is product cost is almost always negative. Twingle makes a profit on the bids; not so much the bids purchased by the final buyer, but more from the bids purchased by clients who dont win and then end up not using the totality of their discount vouchers. It is important to note that Twingle also has a feature called TwingleBidder, which is an automatic bidder. It allows users to bid on products without having to do so manually. It is extremely useful for example when one needs to go away momentarily and does not want to lose the auction. TwingleBidder has various fields that can be configured to bid more effectively; these configurations can be activated/deactivated at any time. The strategic advantages of the general online auction business model (not only for Twingle) include: No time constraints. Bids can be placed at any time (24/7). Items are listed for a number of days (usually between 1 and 10, at the discretion of the seller); giving purchasers time to search, decide, and bid. This convenience increases the number of bidders. No geographical constraints. Sellers and bidders can participate from anywhere that has internet access. This makes them more accessible and reduces the cost of "attending" an auction. This increases the number of listed items (i.e.: number of sellers) and the number of bids for each item (e.g.: number of bidders). The items do not need to be shipped to a central location, reducing costs, and reducing the seller's minimum acceptable price. Intensity of social interactions. The social interactions involved in the bidding process are very similar to gambling. The bidders wait in anticipation hoping they will "win." Much like gambling addiction, some bidders may bid primarily to "play the game" rather than to obtain products or services. This creates a highly loyal customer segment for those clients who remain. This can also skew the prices of items/services/goods in the auction.

Company Overview and Business Model

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Large number of bidders. Because of the potential for a relatively low price, the broad scope of products and services available, the ease of access, and the social benefits of the auction process, there are a large numbers of bidders.

Captures consumers' surplus. Auctions are a form of first degree price discrimination. As such, they attempt to convert part of the consumers' surplus (defined as the area above the market price line but below the firm's demand curve) into producers' surplus.

Twingle is a growing business, but at the moment it has 7 members: 3 managing partners, 2 programmers, 1 web designer and a person responsible for information security. The most likely scenario is that they will hire another programmer soon.

3 Managing Partners

2 Programmers

1 Web Designer

1 Information security

Figure 1: Company Hierarchy

Even though Twingle is a small business the four employees have specific job functions while the three managing partners take care of day to day operations (such as communicating with to suppliers and handling packaging and shipping) and focus on the general company objectives and course of action.

Market Segmentation and Client Profile

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Market Segmentation and Client Profile

Most internet auctions follow the English auction method: the initial price starts low and is bid up by successive bidders. There are two main ways for an online auction website to specialize in: live auctions and online auctions. Most auction websites (like e-bay) specialize in the live segment where they simply serve as a platform for other sellers or other companies to place their products directly to consumer. In these sites many times the platform does not take responsibility for any problem that may arise between sellers and buyers. Twingles scenario is the second case; there is only a relationship between Twingle and the buyer.

The 3 partner-managers of Twingle never really established who their target market was. Anyone over 18 can register and use the website. However they know that their clients have, in general the following profile: Male, Age between 18-60, Very well informed, Internet users, Technologically savvy, Interested in technological items, Interested in fashion items, Interested in home items. Twingle feels that to be a Twingle client means: Access to a new and innovative online auction service in Portugal. Benefit from products with high market value with the possibility of purchasing them at low cost. Benefit from a safe service where the client is followed and helped from the initial bidding until the final purchase. Access the best deals in technological products, home items and fashion vouchers.

Twingle Auction Process

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Twingle Auction Process

The steps involved since interest from a client until the actual purchase in the Twingle website are as follows: 1. To participate in the auctions one must first register in the database with a username and password. 2. The user should buy bids, each with a cost of 0,20. 3. Each new bid adds extra time to the timer of the auction; this is visible on the site and may vary from product to product. 4. Users pay for each bid they make, even if they end up not buying the product. The value of the bids spent will be converted into discount vouchers with a life time of 30 days. They can only be used by the user to discount on the price of future Twingle purchases. 5. The auction finishes when no more bids are presented in the time remaining of a product. The user with the last bid before the end of the time wins the auction. 6. The winner of the auction is determined based on the data base of Twingles registry.

Past Sales Price Sold (not including cost of bids made) Store Price

Current Price

Time Remaining Present Sale

Online Auctions

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Online Auctions
The boom in online trading
The economic downturn will eventually lead to an increase in online trading in 2010. Consumers will increase their purchases online looking for deals and promotions, especially through auction sites. Craigslist, eBay, Twingle and many others will probably see their traffic increase exponentially. According to the website Strangecorp.com, retailers will therefore have to make a more competitive offer to sell their products in order to attract new users to their websites. The business model of online companies might have to be based on marketing strategies that include offerings and promotions in order to increase customer loyalty and in the end sales.

Ecommerce
According to Forrester Research, US online retail reached $175 billion in 2008 and is projected to grow to $335 billion by 2012. Business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce continues its double-digit year-over-year growth rate, in part because sales are shifting away from stores and in part because online shoppers are less sensitive to adverse economic conditions than the average US consumer. Despite the continued growth of the channel, online retailers face several challenges to growth: online stores are broadly perceived as a second choice for shoppers, online retail is becoming increasingly seasonal, and online shoppers rarely admit to browsing, which can drive valuable incremental dollars during their Web shopping experiences.

Future Forecasts
Over 10% of the Portuguese population uses on a regular basis online websites to purchase products which accounts for more than a million people. This number is expected to grow somewhere near 2.5 million by 2012. In 2009 around 88000 Portuguese companies used online markets and it is expected that in four years about 45% of Portuguese companies will

Online Auctions

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use e-commerce. This type of markets are booming in Portugal but there is still much room for them to grow especially regarding the purchases made by individuals, also known as business to consumer (B2C) By 2012, almost 22% of the Portuguese population will be using online shopping.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The trend of the online auction markets has been one of rapid growth, both in size and in number. One of the main reasons is that the apparent advantages of this market outweigh the disadvantages for the company. A brief summary of some of the advantages and disadvantages of the market are represented in the following table:

Table 1: Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Auctions

Advantages Autonomy selling Autonomy buying Product costs Product exposition Protection of goods

Disadvantages Physical distance between company and client High customer turnover Little interaction with customer Low customer loyalty Cannot place too many items on sale without having many customers, however customers like having variety to choose from

Stock Control Relatively easier international expansion

(when compared to a traditional store) Increased scope for new companies and new products Growing market means easier to raise new clients Reduced distribution costs (shipping is paid

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for by buyer) Can offer wide range of products to the consumer

The main disadvantages of the online markets are related to the fear that consumers still have when shopping online. Although online shopping has increased significantly the last few years, there are still a lot of people afraid to purchase anything online, let alone high tech expensive products. Online companies tend to advertise a lot in order for their customers to feel that they know how the business works, that they know the structure that is behind the activity of the company and that generates more confidence which allows the customer to feel safe and secure when purchasing anything online.

Evolutionary Growth

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Evolutionary Growth
Twingle has had an unexpected growth and daily gaining an average of over 150 new registered clients. One of the hardest parts in this business model is starting up because of the vicious cycle that naturally exists. Small websites with a small amount of clients cannot place many items on sale at a time (because the number of clients would not allow enough bids to make it profitable). However, part of what clients seek is a wide range of products, so potential clients arent so attracted to smaller online auctions. Twingle had an advantage of being one of the first to market with an innovative idea which allowed for its initial and continuing growth. At first the company would place an average of three new products every day to be auctioned, now the average lies somewhere between ten and twelve per day. Revenues have also increased over the months since start up. After a couple of months revenues were less than 40 000, in October and November 2009 they were somewhere between 50 000-60 000 hitting an all time high in December topping the 70 000 mark. In January things returned approximately to the level they were at in November. See Annexes 1-3 for discriminatory numbers on the amount of visitors, originating traffic sources (how visitors arrive to the site) and regional coverage (where the visitors come from) during the months of November, December 2009 and January 2010.

Advertising and Distribution

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Advertising and Distribution

Twingles main distribution system is based on the companys platform website. The products are made known to the consumer and then auctioned and finally made available through the website. After being purchased, the products are sent to the consumers thanks to another company (CTT), the Portuguese public post service. However, Twingles main products come from another website company called Pixmania. The products sold by Twingle are mostly High Tech products such as mobile phones, computers, movie cameras, refrigerators, but also perfumes or even vouchers. The products auctioned online are always new products with warranty. In terms of advertising, Twingle being a new company in the Portuguese market has used so far only two methods to advertise for herself. The company uses the server Google as a way to access her potential customers by appearing in the search part of Googles front-page with her own personal paid for link. Another way to advertise used by Twingle has been to appear in little ads in other websites. Twingles products are usually sold at a less expensive price than other products and that contributes in part to the companys success in the online market. The prices can vary depending on the type of products or the number of interested buyers. Twingle hasnt been in the Portuguese market for a long time, but its methods in terms of advertising and distribution have allowed it to keep selling new products at very low prices. However the market in which the company operates is very immature. People tend to be extremely cautious when buying products online and the use of credit cards doesnt always attract new customers. Twingle is a small, recent but innovative company, and still as progress to do in the online market especially in terms of its dependence towards the online platform it is attached to and which often tends to collapse and loose all auctioned data recorded so far. Twingles marketing strategy essentially comes down to advertisements in other internet sites. The logic behind this is that Twingle users are internet users; therefore it makes sense to advertise where there is visibility for the target market.

Advertising and Distribution

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A great majority of Twingles expenses come from advertising expenses. The thing about internet advertising is that even though there is a fixed cost, part of what is paid is variable depending on: the number of clicks to visit the website, the number of registered clients that arrived from that original link and the amount of money those people spent on the website. Twingle estimates that they spend around 15000 a month on advertisement less on the months with less return and more and on the months with more. The return is not the total revenue of the company (currently the total revenue ranges between 50000-60000). The return deriving from the website where Twingle advertises designated advertisement revenues is calculated by adding total of what those clients who registered in Twingle after having clicked on the link from one of Twingles paid advertisement end up spending in the Twingle website. Once again it is important to understand that the return here considered is not the total revenue of the company, it is only the direct return from clients that originated from websites where Twingle pays to advertise in. It does not consider the indirect return that derives from the word of mouth these clients create.

Table 2: Advertisement Expenses and Advertisement Revenues

35.000,00 30.000,00 25.000,00 20.000,00 15.000,00 10.000,00 5.000,00 0,00 Nov-09 Revenues Expenses

Revenues Nov-09 Dez-09 Jan-10 17.535,00 32.790,00 17.140,00

Expenses 15.000,00 15.000,00 15.000,00

35.000,00 30.000,00 25.000,00 20.000,00 15.000,00 10.000,00 5.000,00 0,00 Dez-09 Revenues Expenses

35.000,00 30.000,00 25.000,00 20.000,00 15.000,00 10.000,00 5.000,00 0,00 Jan-10 Revenues Expenses

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The monthly expenses can be approximately divided into the following discriminated expenses:

Table 3: Discriminated Expenses

Google Netaffiliation Facebook Various Megaclick Eroadver Sapo total

6.000 4.000 2.000 1.500 500 500 500 15.000

See Annexes 4-6 for more information about discriminated number of clicks, number of registries and total money spent by people that derive from each of the websites.

Macro Environment

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Macro Environment
The following section will consider a PEST (political-legal, economical, social and technological) analysis of Twingles macroeconomic external environment.

Political-Legal
Twingle has various clauses that protect the company/seller, the website and the buyer/client. In Portugal there is currently no clear law regarding the legality of these websites. The vastness of the internet does not allow the law to contemplate every specific case. However that is something that worries legislators and there are already some specific laws for some cases. It is difficult to administer laws in a platform, that even for the most understood in the matter, is a giant world that is constantly changing. Customer support and complaints management are a big concern for the company. Since the legal scenario is not clear cut, its necessary to pass their own security tests and present the legal rules with which the company guides itself.

Economical
All markets, including the online auction one, were affected by the global crises that started in 2008. Despite the difficult and unstable scenario, Twingle managed to turn a profit in the electronic auction market because of its innovative and differentiable project. This crisis created doubt and reluctance from possible clients, but Twingle so far has managed to differentiate in this market. In this way, regardless of the economical instability the company has done well in the market and used this crisis to its advantage by trying to show consistent alternatives which a fragile client can start to believe in and bet on. Twingle managed to have an unplanned success and sales volume with a very quick growth, with serious concerns about sustainability. In such high-tech market, change is of the essence. This makes the market somewhat fragile and hard to predict. In order to be successful a website must be versatile and discover what it is

Macro Environment

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clients are seeking. So far Twingle has gotten this at least acceptably right; however there is some worry about the future.

Social
The social facts have positive and negative impacts on this sector, the fact that nowadays clients are more informed and more concerned, creates a positive impact for this social context. The retraction on the acquisition of some products is due this exact fact, the prepurchase search for information makes the clients more experts and more able to analyse them. Although there is the customer loyalty factor, clients search for what is best for them, looking for websites that offer better condition even if they are for a short period of time and at a cheap price. There is, however, some retraction when it comes to the use of these types of websites by the general population.

Technological
Technological impacts are positive and visible when it comes to quickness and how easy it is to access the clients account. The Internet brought a positive comfort to the client allowing them, through these websites, to access the personal account, bid from home, work, iPhone etc. We are talking about a huge technological breakthrough. However adding to this fact there is a positive response to these sites despite the liability they have. With this indirect contact type of service the relation customer-seller

ceases to exist making it harder to build a trust relation. Although the technological impact is positive it is necessary to take into account that the use of the internet takes customers away from their sellers making it hard to build a long lasting relation.

Micro Environment

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Micro Environment
Main Direct Competitors

Bidrivals offers a way of buying new products at low prices through fun and exciting auctions. Bidrivals organization is corporate, and focuses especially in supplying its members an excellent customer service. They work with different product suppliers, both local and global, and with internationally recognized safe payment methods, such as PayPal and ClickandBuy.

Bidoloo Portugal, SA is a Portuguese law recognized society that develops a commercial activity, which consists of trading consumer goods throughout the Internet, having the products their price fixed by an auction-by-the-cent system. They are present in several countries, like Finland, Estonia and Latvia. They are about to enter both the United Kingdom and Russian markets. All auctioned products are new and from market recognized brands. The auctions occur on a multi-country scheme, happening at the same time in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Portugal. They intend to apply in a domestic level this auction specialized e-commerce system as soon as the number of national users justifies it.

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Table 4: Comparison between Twingle and competitors

Number of Users Country of Origin / Countries

27047 Portugal Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Spain, Portugal USA, Australia, Malta

Payment Methods

Years of Existence Bid Price

04 / 2009 0,20

04/2008 By packages: Average price = 0,57

4 / 5 years 0,50

Functioning Hours Limit of Winning Auctions per person (monthly) Buy now option Automatic Bidding System Presence in social networks Money refund for unsuccessful bids

10h 24h No

7h 22h No

24 h 6

No Yes

No No

Yes Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Discount vouchers with 30 days life time to be used in

No

Discount vouchers with 24hour life time (since end of

Micro Environment

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auction) that can be used to purchase the auctioned product at the buy now price

Demonstration of satisfied customers Published articles on the website (press)

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Market / Competitors Analysis

The financial situation that Portugal is currently living allows a stagnation of the demand of products with high perceived value due to innumerous reasons, such as the increase in unemployment. This can be interpreted as a decisive factor also in the decrease of demand of companies such as Twingle. However, if for one side the involvement of the consumer with high-priced products has decreased in the last year due to the lack of capital, the opportunity of getting such products at low prices, due to low-cost auctions can be interpreted as a boost to the demand of consumers. The low-cost auctions market is increasing. In the months of October, November and December 2009 Bidrivals demand has grown 48%, Bidoloo 30% and Twingle shows a stunning growth of 148%. Twingle focuses in the quality of the products that makes available to the customers, as well as in some safety assurances regarding both the bids, their respective payment and in the sending of won products to the customers.

Micro Environment

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Reliability and Quality Service: The customer has the possibility of receiving the product in Twingle facilities; The customer has the possibility of acquiring high-tech products with low prices; The customer enjoys the less expensive auction website available in the market.

The Future

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The Future
Twingle has been growing over the past months, but it has difficulties with client retention. This end up flattening what could be an exponential growth. This makes one wonder about the viability of the business model itself. Also, Twingle faces a challenge because of its low credibility.

Credibility Problem
Despite Twingles privacy policy and their desire to have a transparent and honest company, Twingle has suffered harsh criticism and in general does not have a tremendously high credibility among internet users. Obviously these sites have more people losing bids then those who win (otherwise they would not make money) and those who lose sometimes feel like they were cheated. Therefore it is normal for these kinds of sites to initially have some credibility problems, however Twingles case is more so, and therefore slightly worrying for th e managing partners. See annex 7 for Twingles privacy policy.

Future Possibilities
There are a few possibilities for future courses of action. However, the three managing partners cannot seem to decide on whether or not they should follow all of them, one of them, or even none of them (at least in the short term).

International Expansion One possibility is international expansion. The initial plan envisioned Twingle on an international level, at least including all of the Iberian Peninsula. The contract with the current transporter already includes that provision. However it does not go without a cost, for one thing the company would need to hire someone fluent in Spanish. They would also have to buy a new domain (seeing as currently they own www.twingle.pt) but www.twingle.com is owned

The Future

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by an individual in the United States who said he would sell the domain for US$7000, (approximately 5100). Also, Twingle is a registered brand for German motor engines, there shouldnt been any problem since the business model is completely different, but they could be forced to change brand. This would be a huge blow after all the investment in gaining brand recognition in Portugal. There is also the possibility of expansion to other countries, not only Spain. This would mean however, a higher investment cost and greater risk, but the principal would remain the same.

Buy Now Option The second possibility is creating the buy now option, similar to the concept Bidrivals uses. Here the website would function not only as an online auctioning platform but as an online store as well. The concept serves to reduce the risk of the bidder, that way if he/she loses the biddings he/she can use the value of the bids in the following 24hours to discount on the purchase price of the item. This system could be implemented alongside the existing one (discount vouchers with a 30 day life time) or could replace it. The main disadvantage though is that a great chunk of Twingles profit probably comes from unused vouchers (either because people give up trying to buy something or because the value of what they manage to buy ends up being less than the value of vouchers they have). By creating this option the amount of unused vouchers would most likely decrease and to make up for it the companys sales would have to increase to gain profit from the difference between the buy now price (store price) and the cost of buying it from their suppliers.

Other Possibilities The three managing partners know that there may be other courses of actions that they may not be taking into consideration. They are open to new suggestions, from within their company (i.e. employees) and from without, and are actively searching for ways to improve all aspects of the business.

The Meeting

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The Meeting
As Lus, Rui and Joo (the three managing partners) sat down together one day during work they soon began to talk about the companys future a nd their own as well. You know this growth rate cant go on forever said Joo, we definitely need to think about the store possibility. The thing is you understand that most of our profit comes from unused vouchers. And auctions are our core competency, it seems like you want to go head into something without completely thinking about the consequences countered Rui. No, I havent crunched the numbers, but theres always some margin of profit, even in a direct a sale. Also Im taking into consideration our client lose rate, it costs money to get them back. Well for one thing its always high in this kind of market, and we dont really know that much in the first place to make that kind of decision. Plus its pretty much just you who wants to do this, and I dont think you can convince me or Lus that easily, at least not in the short run. Lus, who seemed to have been musing to himself for the whole time spoke up: You guys seem to be forgetting about the expansion possibility. Spain seems like an obvious choice, but is it worth it? Is now the right timing? What about the domain? Sure its easy to say that, but is it doable? Rui wondered. Im also worried about current situations we face. Is our marketing correct, should we just focus on advertisement? What about our credibility problem? Since Im the one who decides where to invest our money in advertisement I guess youre asking me Joo replied. You know I think thats the way to go. We need lots of visibility and since our clients are internet users it makes perfect sense to advertise in their world. The credibility issue I believe is just a matter of time until we win the publics trust. Well Im worried that we may be becoming too accustomed to our method of working. I know we are constantly working on our website and improving it, but is that all we should be doing? asked Lus.

The Meeting

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We cant seem to agree on what the best path is for the future, stated Rui. Well if you want to talk about the future, where do you see yourself in ten years? asked Joo. Hopefully not doing the same thing Im doing now. I dont want to be supervising and talking to suppliers for the rest of my life. Guys were getting off track and we have day to day work to do. I guess for now we will have to agree to disagree about our companys future. I just know that we cant keep on waiting to see what tomorrow will bring concluded Lus.

Financial Data

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Financial Data
Balance Sheet (31/12/09)

Annexes

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Annexes
Annex 1: Data Relative to January 2010

Visitors

133.172 people visited the website Accounting a total of 951.379 site exhibitions and 270.739 visits With an average 5:17 minutes on the website 42,66% were new visits

Traffic Sources Out of the 270.739 visits: Regional Coverage 40,08% came from direct traffic 33,77% came from links from other sites 26,15% came from search engines

Visits per country:

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Annex 2: Data Relative to December 2009

Visitors

132.569 people visited the website Accounting a total of 928.257 site exhibitions and 278.351 visits With an average 4:56 minutes on the website 41,19% were new visits

Traffic Sources Out of the 278.351 visits: 41,93% came from direct traffic 36,42% came from links from other sites 21,65% came from search engines

Regional Coverage

Visits per country:

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Annex 3: Data Relative to November 2009

Visitors

110.506 people visited the website Accounting a total of 919.512 site exhibitions and 258.760 visits With an average 5:05 minutes on the website 39,37% were new visits

Traffic Sources Out of the 258.760 visits: 45,39% came from direct traffic 36,13% came from links from other sites 18,48% came from search engines

Regional Coverage

Visits per country:

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Annex 4: Clicks Discriminated by Originating Website

Eroadver Facebook Google Megaclick Megavideo Netaffiliation Sapo Various IOL Total Nov. 09 8340 3394 12793 38 734 42129 67428 Dec. 09 33872 17718 19097 39071 1079 1958 40435 153230 Jan. 10 55808 25091 26970 9664 4197 1000 54337 177067

Annex 5: Registries Discriminated by Originating Website

Eroadver Facebook Google Megaclick Megavideo Netaffiliation Sapo Various IOL Total Nov. 09 40 101 264 3210 69 511 4660 Dec. 09 136 372 690 430 4 3286 100 599 5617 Jan. 10 117 325 787 90 16 3000* 33 454 9 4831

Annex 6: Sales Discriminated by Originating Website

Eroadver Facebook Google Megaclick Megavideo Netaffiliation* Sapo Various IOL Total Nov. 09 155,00 250,00 710,00 14.970,00 80,00 1.370,00 17.535,00 Dec. 09 1.225,00 1.180,00 6.660,00 3.235,00 14.195,00 940,00 5.355,00 32.790,00 Jan. 10 760,00 1.960,00 8.165,00 1.130,00 80,00 14.000,00 * 1.020,00 3.925,00 100,00 17.140,00
* estimates: data not yet collected

Annexes

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Annex 7: Privacy Policy

Twingle values the privacy of its users and in this sense is committed to complying with it, ensuring the confidentiality and protection of any personal data recorded by users. The Privacy Statement is intended to ensure safety and privacy for the users, requesting and collecting only data necessary to fulfill the service, according to the information displayed on the companys website. The user has complete freedom to access his personal data online and can either correct it or dispose of it. Twingle assumes with its users the following commitments: To gather and process all the data in a lawful and loyal way, collecting only the information necessary and relevant to the purpose intended; To allow the user to access his own data in order to correct any information registered about him; Not to use the data collected for any other purpose than the one intended by Twingle; To ensure the right to dispose of the data collected if requested by the holder; To have security mechanisms that prevent the display, modification, destruction or additions of any data by unauthorized persons; Not to perform any combination of personal data, unless authorized by law; The user has full freedom to access his data, rectify it or dispose of it.