DAYTON, Ohio, Oct. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Advant-e Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: ADVC - News) announced today the performance of GroceryEC.com for the nine months ending 9/30/2002. GroceryEC.com is the company's first vertical industry business-to-business web-based e-commerce portal.
GroceryEC.com is a web-based system for allowing manufacturers and brokers in the grocery industry to conduct electronic commerce with their retail customers. GroceryEC.com allows its subscribers to send and receive electronic purchase orders, invoices, price changes, item information, promotional contracts, advance ship notices, and other documents via a web-based service.
As of September 30, 2002, GroceryEC.com supported 116 retailer Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) implementations including Kroger, SUPERVALU, Albertson's, Publix, Costco, Fleming, Food Lion, Safeway, Giant Eagle, Nash Finch, Penn Traffic, Roundy's, Target, A&P, HEB, Meijer, United Supermarkets, Wakefern, Wal-Mart, and Winn-Dixie. Suppliers in the grocery, retail, and chain drug store markets can support the EDI initiatives of a broad range of retailers via one subscription to GroceryEC.com or RetailEC.com.
Suppliers using GroceryEC.com increased by 522 in the first nine months of 2002 bringing the total number of subscribers to 2,295. This 29% increase is due to several retailers who recommend GroceryEC.com to their suppliers as a solution to do EDI using a web browser.
The number of trading relationships on GroceryEC.com increased to 5,615 from 3,480 at the end of 2001. This 61% increase is attributable to the continual addition of retailers supported on the system. A trading relationship is defined as an electronic trading link between one supplier and one retailer. Each subscriber on GroceryEC.com currently uses the system to connect to an average of 2.4 retailers.
The total dollar amount of purchase orders processed on GroceryEC.com in the first nine months of 2002 was $1.5 billion vs. $700 million in all of 2001. This increase of over 114% so far in 2002 is also attributed to increases in trading partnerships and the number of purchase orders processed. The total amount of purchase orders processed to date on GroceryEC.com stands at $2.4 billion. The average individual purchase order dollar amount processing on GroceryEC.com is approximately $7,400.
Commenting on the results, Jason K. Wadzinski, President and CEO of Advant-e, stated, "We are pleased with the continued adoption of GroceryEC.com as the preferred web-EDI solution in the grocery industry. The retailers who leverage our capabilities are seeing dramatic increases in the number of suppliers who can do EDI with them, and are benefiting from the associated cost savings of processing business documents electronically instead of using paper-based systems."
"Additionally, our supplier ramping services that include a web-based partner testing and certification system, on-line collaboration tools, and retailer-specific EDI web-sites have allowed retailers who use our Hub & Spoke Marketing Program to maximize the return on their existing EDI investments. These services accomplish this by adding a large amount of EDI-enabled trading partners with no corresponding cost increase to the retailer," continued Mr. Wadzinski.
The information in this news release includes certain forward looking statements that are based upon assumptions that in the future may prove not to have been accurate and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, including statements to the future financial performance of the company. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected on its forward looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations or any or its forward-looking statements will prove to be correct. Factors that could cause results to differ include, but are not limited to, successful performance of internal plans, product development and acceptance, the impact of competitive services and pricing, or general economic risks and uncertainties.
Advant-e, via its wholly owned and sole operating subsidiary Edict Systems, Inc., is a provider of Business-to-Business electronic commerce software and Internet-based applications specializing in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and XML-based solutions for recurring transactions. Advant-e specializes in horizontal transaction services via EnterpriseEC®, an Internet-based Electronic Business Transaction Network, and within specific vertical industries via web-based "vortals" including www.GroceryEC.com , www.RetailEC.com , www.CPGSupplier.com , www.LogisticsEC.com , and www.MfgEC.com .