WWRE reports first profitable year
After launching more than four years ago promising to use the Internet to revolutionize retailer-supplier communication and commerce, the WorldWide Retail Exchange reports that 2004 will be its first profitable year.
“2004 was our most productive and rewarding year so far,” said Robert Heaton, CFO and acting CEO. “The exchange is now a self-sustaining organization with a very committed member base.”
The WWRE, an Internet-based organization founded by retailers that offers procurement and supply chain collaboration services to retailers and their suppliers, has also shifted its membership to include more suppliers than retailers, providing its retailer members with more opportunities for trading with manufacturers. It now serves 35 retailers, including Best Buy Co. Inc., J.C. Penney Co. Inc., Safeway Inc., Walgreen Co. and Target Corp., and more than 200 suppliers, a spokeswoman says.
The increased membership has driven up revenues and profits from membership dues as well as from fees the WWRE charges on data synchronization, procurement and collaboration services, the organization says. It notes that its overall contract negotiation and auction services will double in volume this year over 2003, hitting a total of $10 billion since the WWRE’s inception, and that its number of collaborative sourcing sessions increased to 34 this year from 14 in 2003.
The increase in the number of suppliers is partly due to the efforts of several WWRE retailer members, who have prepared their product information for an Internet data exchange, to inform suppliers that the only way they would receive suppliers’ product data was through the WWRE, the spokeswoman adds. “Retailers are moving forward with data synchronization projects, and now we’re ready for another big influx of suppliers next year,” she says.
Until now, the WWRE has mainly dealt with suppliers in the grocery and consumer electronics segments, but next year will add entertainment and hardlines, the WWRE says.
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