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Golfsmith.com Recognized as Best in Class Among Retail Web Sites

AUSTIN, Texas—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Golfsmith International Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOLF) is pleased to report that its web site (golfsmith.com) was recognized as one of the top retail web sites for customer service and overall customer experience. The two mystery shopping studies, conducted by the e-tailing group, each benchmarked 100 retail web sites. Golfsmith was the only company to be recognized in the “top performers” for both studies.

“I wasn’t surprised to see Golfsmith be on top of both our customer service and egeg (e-tailing group e-commerce gauge) customer experience index,” said Lauren Freedman, president of the e-tailing group. “Their site has long been one where innovation from an e-commerce and cross-channel perspective is embedded in the shopping experience. From best-in-class functionality to superior service, they are always a contender.”

The e-tailing group’s Customer Service Study measured how well a retailer delivers on a variety of attributes including how easy it is to search for products on a retailer’s web site, the speed of the checkout process online, if an 800 number is easy to find online, how fast orders are delivered, and much more. Other retailers recognized included Babycenter, Bluefly, Brooks Brothers, Brookstone, Crutchfield, HP Home and Home Office, Lands’ End and Walmart.

The e-tailing group’s e-commerce gauge study measures more than 260 customer experience features and functionality including how home pages and products pages are designed, to how products are categorized and presented online for a faster, easier shopping experience. Other retailers recognized included Sears, Frontgate, L.L. Bean, Discovery Channel, Amazon, BestBuy and Orvis.

“We are very proud to be recognized as one of the top retail web sites in the e-tailing group’s mystery studies,” said Martin Hanaka, chief executive officer of Golfsmith. “Being recognized alongside some of the best brands in the world is a great accomplishment for our team. We continue to invest in new, innovative features on golfsmith.com, as we are doing for our brick and mortar stores, to give our guests the best possible multi-channel shopping experience.”

Golfsmith.com currently offers the following features:

• Best golf and tennis brands - more than 30,000 unique SKUs by the biggest and best brands in the industry including TaylorMade-adidas®, Callaway®, Nike®, PING®, Under Armour®, Titleist®, Cobra®, Head/Penn®, Cleveland®, Babolat®, Wilson®, Prince®, and many more.

• Order online pick-up in-store - guests can order their products online and pick them up at any Golfsmith store across the country with no shipping fees.

• 24/7 customer service - guests can call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

• Live Chat - to assist online guests for quick questions and advice.

• Expert advice - tips on how to buy the right equipment for your game (including golf product videos) along with game improvement advice

• Tee time booking - the ability to book tee times all over the country.

• Lesson booking - the ability to book a lesson with a PGA Pro through any GolfTEC location throughout the country.

• Golf travel and event tickets - guests can book a golf vacation to some of most exclusive courses around the world or book tickets to their favorite PGA Tour event.

• Golf handicap tracking - golfers can set up and track their official USGA handicap.

Posted on March 12, 2009
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