Green Cricket takes green shopping mainstream

New Canadian online company launches, making it easy, affordable and convenient for people to buy green products online.

TORONTO, February 11, 2009 - Green Cricket, a Toronto-based online retailer of environmental products jumped into action today by launching the next generation of green-shopping experience – one designed for mainstream shoppers.

The company was created to make choices easier, greener and more affordable for the average consumer, recognizing that people don't have to be ardent environmentalists to make a difference.

Green Cricket Founder:
From Chief Executive Officer to “Chief Environment Officer”

Like millions of women and moms with busy lives, Green Cricket founder and CEO Susan Mey comes to the green lifestyle as an outsider. The former President and CEO of Kodak Canada Inc. considers herself an “environmentalist in training” who is quickly gaining expertise and a voice.

“Green Cricket is designed to take the green experience to the mainstream shopping audience by matching its expectation of an easy buying experience,” said Susan Mey, Green Cricket Founder and CEO. “In five-or-ten years, all retailers will be green. But for now, what will break the logjam and bring green shopping to the masses is the appeal to the everyday shopper.”

Green Cricket focuses on those expectations through the following principles:

• Effectiveness (products that actually work)
• Convenience (one stop shopping, online, delivered to your home)
• Affordability
• Style

Product Categories: From Busy Moms to Yoga Enthusiasts

As a green aggregator, Green Cricket offers a great breadth in terms of products and categories. The company has offerings for everything from busy moms and businesses to active lifestyles and yoga enthusiasts. The products are broken into eight categories:

• Home Life
• Baby
• Spa
• Outdoor & Pets
• Personal Care
• Yoga
• Apparel
• Specialty (coffee, tea, chocolate)

Green Cricket also assembles gift baskets in which everything is green, including the products, wrapping, ribbon, gift card and even the basket.

How Green is Green Cricket
Combating Greenwashing issue with Green Rating System

"The Six Sins of Greenwashing", a study by environmental marketing firm TerraChoice found that more than 99% of 1,018 common consumer products randomly surveyed for the study were guilty of greenwashing (misleading customers about the environmental benefits of the product)

Green Cricket believes scrutiny and transparency are the missing market components to easing consumers’ minds about greenwashing. Accordingly, Green Cricket assesses every product offered on its site against a five-point Green Rating System that uses a range of environmental factors that span the product lifecycle:

• Ingredients
• Packaging
• Process
• Certification
• Distance to Market

Green Cricket Expert Panel Answers Consumers' Questions

Green Cricket also has a panel of experts on its website. The panel members vet products, answer reader’s questions and post occasional stories on environmental subjects such as “Being a Green Mom”.

“We want to make it easy for all consumers by ensuring transparency and quality in equal measures,” said Mey. “People want to know that the products they are buying are as green as advertised, so our commitment is to do the homework and research and to choose and explain smart choices to consumers.”

About Green Cricket

Green Cricket is a Toronto-based company that offers consumers a wide variety of green products through its online store.

Green Cricket has a mission of bringing quality green products to mainstream consumers in a way that is convenient, meaningful and fun.

Green Cricket’s commitment to its customers is to do the homework so its consumers can make their regular shopping experience one that supports their home environment as well as the environment at large.

Visit Green Cricket at http://www.greencricket.ca/

Media Contact

Terance Brouse
(647) 274-5249
tebrouse@rogers.com