CHICAGO, Dec. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- W.W. Grainger, Inc. (NYSE: GWW)
(http://www.grainger.com), North America's leading distributor of maintenance,
repair, and operating (MRO) supplies and related information, now accepts
credit cards for payment on its Web site, grainger.com. Purchasers are now
able to use Visa(R), MasterCard(R), or American Express(R) to pay for their
orders, thus providing them with flexible payment options.
"In the MRO industry 95% of purchasing transactions are completed using
open accounts. Although most consumer catalog sites accept credit cards for
payment, open accounts have always been standard in our industry," said Daniel
Hamburger, Vice President and General Manager, Internet Commerce. "The idea
of using credit cards on the Internet is something that other MRO sites don't
offer and is very new to MRO purchasers. Our customers' time is valuable, so
grainger.com strives to make transactions as convenient and expeditious as
possible."
The grainger.com site will employ the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
technology -- a low level encryption scheme used to encrypt transactions in
higher-level protocols such as HTTP, NNTP and FTP. It includes provisions for
server authentication (verifying the server's identity to the client),
encryption of data in transit, and optional client authentication (verifying
the client's identity to the server). Most importantly, SSL has a security
protocol that prevents eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery over the
Internet.
W.W. Grainger, Inc. (GWW), with 1997 sales of $4.1 billion, is the leading
distributor of maintenance, repair, and operating (MRO) supplies and related
information to the commercial, industrial, contractor, and institutional
markets in North America. GWW shares are traded on the New York and Chicago
stock exchanges. For more information visit Grainger on-line at
http://www.grainger.com.
SOURCE W.W. Grainger, Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.grainger.com
Company News On-Call:
http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/953850.html or fax,
800-758-5804, ext. 953850
CONTACT:
Tamara Caruso or Marlin Collingwood of Bozell
Kamstra Public Relations, 412-402-0200, for W.W. Grainger
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