WorldWide Retail Exchange Hits Profitability, Doubles Auction Activity and Counts Over 200 New Members in 2004.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Enhanced Focus and New Member Recruitment Deliver a Successful Year for the WWRE 

The WorldWide Retail Exchange (WWRE), the premier exchange for retailers and suppliers, announced early results for 2004 today, highlighting successes with retailer and supplier adoption of its WorldSOURCE, WorldSHARE, and WorldSYNC solution suites for supply chain collaboration and sourcing optimization. As well, the WWRE staying true to its original vision has shifted its retailer-supplier mix. In September, SCA Hygiene became the first Manufacturer to join the WWRE Board, and overall manufacturer members now outnumber active retailer members 35 to 200+ to drive both scale and functional requirements of the WWRE solutions alongside their customers.

"2004 was our most productive and rewarding year so far, most notably, the Exchange is now a self-sustaining organization with a very committed member base," said Robert Heaton, CFO and acting CEO of the WWRE. "Our WorldSOURCE, WorldSHARE, and WorldSYNC solutions have become institutionalized within our retailer and supplier customers, part of their mission critical systems for business and competitive differentiation. With our strong global commitment to adoption of collaborative solutions the hundreds of new supplier users are just the tip of the iceberg - 2005 will be the year of retailer-supplier collaboration at scale."

WWRE Members are ready to synchronize

"We can see benefit from the progress made with data synchronization in 2004," said John Gleeson, senior vice president, Walgreens. "The WWRE has changed with the involvement of hundreds of our suppliers, and enhanced data quality has resulted from less reliance on multiple handovers from unknown sources."

2004 has been the year of implementation - 20 WWRE retailer members have engaged WorldSYNC Data Exchange (DX), in North America, Europe and Asia with 100+ enrolled suppliers. The WWRE has also met the rigorous standards and certification criteria to become fully operational with the GS1 Global Registry. Additional highlights in 2004 include:

--Creating a partnership with ACNielson and UDEX to create the only global Data Quality program offered by a data synchronization provider.

--Obtaining the first U.S. Global Product Classification (GPC) license and has spent over 18 months testing complex price and promotion synchronization with its retailers and suppliers in preparation for the standardization of these sensitive message transactions. Complex price/promotion synchronization will drive optimum ROI from data synchronization, two years ahead of the marketplace for WWRE members.

--Development of the first consortium to embrace EPC/RFID with its membership, link data synchronization strategy with EPC/RFID strategy, and help its members meet requirements in both. The WWRE's Enablement Services now include WWRE "Dynatic" Data Strategy Consulting, to link Static (GDS) data with Dynamic (EPC event) data. As well, the WWRE extended its data synchronization onboarding programs into EPC/RFID, to help retailers enable their trading partners en mass, and allow suppliers a single place to manage both initiatives/mandates.

--In response to several members' data synchronization rollouts, the WWRE brought the entertainment industry together and pioneered the creation of extended item data requirements for the entertainment sector and submission to GSMP for adoption as a global standard.

--Launch of the WorldSYNC Partner Network - the WWRE officially has 14 partners signed up across Integration, Professional Services and Data Quality and PIM categories where they have enabled connections to behind the firewall data management providers including Enterworks, GXS, IBM, and Velosel - facilitating end-to-end data synchronization.

WWRE members get deep with WorldSHARE Collaborative Planner

The WWRE's WorldSHARE collaborative planning program gained significant traction this year. In 2004 the Exchange went live with over 100 trading relationships, rolling out several significant programs, most notably for the entertainment sector in the US and grocery in the UK. The WWRE's promotions management solution, developed in 2003, has proven to be a huge success this year, with Tesco onboarding over 80 suppliers in food.

"Our partnership with the WWRE enabled Tesco to develop an improved promotions planning process," said Stuart Blackery, Commercial B2B Manager for Tesco. "Because of WWRE's solution and support, we are communicating more efficiently with our trading partners and finding our overall management of promotional planning activities to be much better and simpler."

Also in the WorldSHARE suite the WWRE has made great progress with Supply Chain Visibility (SCV). The WWRE SCV solution, powered by BridgePoint, Inc., has achieved success in 2004 by gaining adoption from WWRE retail members in North America and Asia Pacific regions. Members are using SCV to track international shipments from manufactures and distributors to DC's and warehouses, across multiple trade lanes and modes of transport.

WWRE surpasses $10 billion in volume and conducts 34 successful collaborative sourcing events

WWRE WorldSOURCE continues to drive big ROI within the WWRE membership - this year reaching a major accomplishment of moving over $10 billion dollars in volume through its Negotiations and Auctions solution since inception. Additionally, the WWRE's 2004 overall volume doubled that of 2003, the annual savings percentage ended above the overall average at 14.5%, and savings surpassed $600 million.

"There has been much cynicism around the life expectancy of auctions," said Maureen Phillips-Hauser, Senior Director at the WWRE. "Despite the skeptics, in 2004 we have more than doubled the monthly average number of individual and collaborative auction events run through the Exchange."

Collaborative Sourcing activity increased from 14 events in 2003 to 34 in 2004 with an overall savings average of over 20%. WWRE's collaborative, consortium-buying solutions continue to enable members to gain economies of scale, by collaborating on purchases of similar categories - a unique competitive advantage for WWRE members.

For more information visit the WWRE website at www.wwre.org or www.worldwideretailexchange.org.