DEAN’S CARDS WEBSITE AWARDED THE TOY & HOBBY STANDARD OF EXCELLENCE

DEAN’S CARDS WEBSITE AWARDED THE TOY & HOBBY STANDARD OF EXCELLENCE

Cincinnati Based eCommerce Company Receives National Recognition for Website Design

Cincinnati, OH, September 18, 2009 – Dean’s Cards announced today that Web Marketing Association awarded Dean’s Cards the 2009 Toy & Hobby Standard of Excellence award www.webaward.org.  Dean’s Cards was founded in 2001 and has become the leading online seller of Sports Cards and Sports Magazines.

The Dean’s Cards Website was founded by owner Dean Hanley in his basement in 2001.  Hanley originally started with 25,000 vintage baseball and football cards online.  Dean’s Cards has experienced an average growth rate of over 50% per year, has a dozen employees and occupies a 3000 square foot office space in Cincinnati, OH.  Dean’s Cards now has over 850,000 sports cards and non-sports cards online. In addition, Dean’s Cards has yearbooks, media guides, sports magazines, autographs and other sports memorabilia.  As an example, Dean’s Cards offers almost every Sports Illustrated magazine ever issued.

Dean’s Cards launched its new website in June 2009.  The new website is visually appealing, fast and easy to navigate.  “Technology has evolved so fast since we started selling baseball cards eight years ago,” states Dean.  “It was a tough decision to make this big investment in technology, especially when we were already a leader in the Sports Collecting Hobby, but we really wanted to go from good to great.”

The new website positions the company for the future.  Now the focus is on eMarketing. With the rapid evolution of Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook, newsletters and blogs, “we are living in the Wild West of eCommerce,” states Hanley.

Hanley has collected cards for more than 40 years.  Dean received a BS in Marketing from Auburn University and an MBA from the University of Southern California.  Hanley spent over a decade in the software industry and was product manager for a large company when he was laid off after the dot-com bust of 2000.  Dean then made his escape from the corporate world to make a living selling sports collectibles.