February 27. 2004

Thomson Learning Eliminates Restocking Fees and Expands Rewards

Thomson Learning's Service Plus program will be revised effective immediately including the elimination of the restocking fees and the expansion of rewards. Any Inventory Management Fees already charged in 2004 will be reimbursed automatically to those stores' accounts. Platinum and Gold customers will now receive discounts off all orders placed and shipped in 2004.

"The Service Plus program has been a resounding success for Thomson Learning," commented Stephen Hochheiser, Thomson Learning's Director of Academic Reseller Management. "The rewards have been received enthusiastically by college stores across the country while the Inventory Management Fee has been extremely effective in reducing our returns. Now that we have a sustained history of lower returns from the nation's college stores, it is time to remove the restocking fees and focus on rewarding the most efficient college store operations."

The qualifications for Platinum and Gold status remain the same and the qualification period is still the calendar year.

The expanded rewards provide a 1% discount for Platinum and 1/2% discount for Gold on all orders placed and shipped during 2004. The discounts will appear automatically on each invoice and apply regardless of order method. This replaces the previous limited discounts that only applied to electronic orders placed during two designated six-week periods. These expanded discounts also replace the freight rewards that many stores found too cumbersome to claim. The new order discounts will be applied retroactively to all 2004 Platinum and Gold customers' accounts for orders already placed and shipped this calendar year.

Please refer to our Benefits grid for complete details about the Service Plus program.