AccessVia Launches First Retail Consulting Practice Focused Entirely on Consumer Messaging.

Expert Consulting Closes the Gap in Retail's Last Mile

SEATTLE -- AccessVia announces their new consulting team to optimize retail consumer messaging. AccessVia's Consumer Messaging Optimization Services bring the transformative power of strategic consulting and the muscle of execution together to impact marketing, visual merchandising, IT and operations where it matters most - in the Last Mile - where consumers make that decision to browse or buy.

"Retailers spend millions to plan, develop and advertise their brand promise -- and it typically falls apart at the shelf, at the point of decision, because that Last Mile is the tough one," says Dean A. Sleeper, AccessVia CEO. "We have learned so much from deploying our publishing technology in over 40,000 stores. We have seen it all - and we know that we can reach deeper into our customers' messaging strategy to truly optimize the results. For large retailers we easily find literally millions in waste that can be trimmed and that frees up resources to focus on the larger opportunity of increasing sales and customer satisfaction."

Long the leader in retail sign publishing solutions, AccessVia combines this history with a forward view of what is to come for consumer messaging. The scope of these services begins with the earliest stages of strategy, concept and design and follows through to complete execution across the very last mile to the store shelf. We continue working with a retailer to develop business processes and execution strategies that ensure that each and every store is fulfilling the retailers brand promise at the point of decision. All of this work maintains a focus on the true objective - to lift sales and reduce costs.

The Optimization Services group is lead by new AccessVia vice president Steven H. "Doc" Love. Love brings 25 years of retail operations, merchandising, and marketing and IT expertise to the team. He has implemented technology and refined business processes for more than 90 retail organizations, impacting more than 25,000 stores world-wide-- Love was responsible for improving revenue by over $450M and reducing operating costs by over $2.2B. Love is a hands-on practitioner with a lifelong passion for in-store execution. "I'm proud of the retail practices I've led and most importantly the real-world gains I've created for our customers. This ground-breaking effort by AccessVia is exceptionally exciting to me because it's the first time that those techniques, the best practices and industry benchmarks will be applied exclusively to consumer messaging. And what could be more core to retail than the very manner in which they speak to their customers at the moment they buy. We are going to transform every part of the organization - I won't rest until every store and every touch point is a daily contributor to keeping a retailer's brand promise intact and customers are walking out the door with a smile and more in their bags," says Love.

"We're thrilled to have Steve on board," says Sleeper. "This is an exciting time in retail consumer messaging with all the new messaging channels - digital signs, in-store media, virtual world e-tailing such as SecondLife and text messaging. Steve has all the deep experience we were looking for and -- best of all -- he 'gets it", with his passion for store execution making retailers more efficient, Steve really understands the shift happening in retail and he's the perfect character to build this important new dialog to address the new consumer in all the current and new touch points. We will continue pioneering in the publishing tools world, in fact our R&D budgets are increasing at their highest rate ever, but by far the biggest financial opportunity for retailers is in identifying the right messaging options to exploit and then how to integrate them efficiently into their daily operations."

AccessVia Publishing Platform solutions include Web dSignShop, designed for retailers who want to use the Internet, an intranet, or an extranet to publish signs using a Web browser without installing or maintaining in-store software. New this year is advances in product content management and extended support for all languages worldwide. Retailers operating across borders rely on AccessVia systems to manage the workflow for publishing signs in multiple languages and currencies.

AccessVia has won recognition including the RIS Retail Software Leaderboard of the top 45 Software Vendors in Retail and was voted by retailers as being one of the top ten vendors for strategic value and performance, quality of support and service, and ease of upgrading. In addition, AccessVia has repeatedly been awarded Microsoft's Retail Application Developer (RAD) Award for North America and EMEA. For over 20 years, AccessVia has produced platform independent, open-standard solutions for retailers and is proud to partner with retail technology leaders such as Oracle, Connect3, IBM, and Microsoft.

AccessVia customers include Bed Bath and Beyond, Kroger, LCBO, Petco, Safeway, Staples, SUPERVALU, Target, Walgreens and Wal-Mart.

About AccessVia, Inc.

AccessVia takes retailers beyond price point to a place where they can truly connect with customers at the moment of choice. Smart consumers expect more than flashing lights and red type. The new consumer requires new messaging.

AccessVia Consumer Messaging Optimization Services help you to envision that future and make it happen. Seasoned retail professionals, armed with best practices, industry benchmarks and new ideas, work with your team to transform your consumer messaging effectiveness and efficiency. AccessVia Publishing Platform solutions provide the software tools to extend your retail brand promise to the Last Mile - where the customer chooses to browse or buy.

Create new business processes for the future then manage your publishing systems with software being used today by Global 500 companies in over 40,000 retail stores. Take your customers beyond price point with AccessVia.