Have you ever longed for the shopping days of old, when you could drive down to your favorite boutique on Main Street, find the latest fashions AND a low pressure salesperson who was ready, willing, and able to help you find what you were looking for? Imagine if that boutique was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it came to you! Well, if you're shopping for maternity clothes, you're in luck! Anna Cris Maternity offers its customers all the benefits of small town boutique shopping, without any of the parking and waiting-in-line headaches!

Anna Cris opened its Internet and catalog doors in Spring 1998 with the ultimate goal of providing maternity consumers all over the world equal access to boutique style shopping, with high quality contemporary fashions, and one on one customer service. The company is owned and managed by Teresa Gallagher and Maria Mueller, two women who have been through the maternity shopping nightmare a total of five times in the last eight years! They began to wonder that, if they had a hard time finding fashionable, affordable, maternity clothes in the highly metropolitan area in which they lived, what kind of options must exist for women in more remote areas of the world?

So they began to ask...and dig...and probe...they sent out a national survey to women who had recently been through the maternity shopping experience. Sixty percent of the surveyed women were motivated enough to reply! The results overwhelmingly showed that all were in fact tired of the low quality, outdated fashions from which they were forced to choose. There was an emphatic demand for a maternity catalog that would offer higher end, quality maternity fashions at prices that were no more than non-maternity counterparts...and so Anna Cris was born.

After months of research, top quality maternity vendors were selected for the premier collection, such as Japanese Weekend, Duet Designs, Rebel Maternity, Maternity Blues, and Belly Basics (owners of the Original Pregnancy Survival Kit), as well as a few of their own designs. The fashions were contemporary and reflected a non-maternity styles designed for pregnancy, as well as lifestyles that most respondents found difficult to find. Anna Cris Maternity launched its online maternity boutique in the fall of 1997, followed by the premier issue of the catalog in the spring of 1998.

The philosophy of the company will always remain the same - to preserve the customer service of the "small town village boutique", and to make this maternity shopping alternative available to women world-wide. Styles will always be a reflection of the hundreds of weekly feedbacks received from its customers, and the merchandise will always be high in quality and contemporary in style. One-on-one customer service will remain top priority… answering emails immediately, sending out requested catalogs within 48 hours, confirming all online orders, and special ordering certain sizes and styles when available through their vendors. Purchases from Anna Cris are "risk-free", with the prepaid return/exchange label provided with every domestic shipment, and delivery of orders is expedited with 3 day or next day services.

All are welcome to visit this refreshing maternity online boutique at http://www.annacris.com. You can just browse, shop online, order a free annual subscription to BabyTalk magazine, or simply drop Teresa and Maria a line... they would love to hear from you!

Teresa Gallagher is a graduate of Villanova University with a BSBA degree in Finance. She worked for many years in the financial world before having her first daughter. Now she has another daughter on the way and has been a tremendous asset in trying on vendor samples to ensure a comfortable fit!

Maria Mueller is a graduate of Lafayette College with a BA degree in Psychology. She worked in retail management for four years before using her Psychology degree in raising her three daughters!