VendorNet Announces the Release of VendorNet StoreNet™ Manager, a Revolutionary Technology that Significantly Increases E-commerce Sales by Leveraging Store-Level Inventory

Delray Beach, FL., July 31, 2008 - VendorNet, a supply chain collaboration solutions provider announces the immediate availability of VendorNet StoreNet™ Manager. VendorNet StoreNet Manager expands the VendorNet Commerce Suite to offer retailers e-commerce and in-store collaboration technology that facilitates online orders for direct-to-consumer fulfillment by traditional stores.

Today, consumers are pre-shopping retail web sites for product features, price, and availability. If their online experience tells them that an item is not available, the retailer is faced with a lost sale, lost demand information for the item, and an unhappy customer. VendorNet StoreNet Manager minimizes these issues by making in-store inventory transparently available for purchase to online shoppers, and capturing true product demand information critical for accurate forecasting. It essentially creates a single virtual warehouse across the enterprise that improves sku availability for online shoppers.

VendorNet StoreNet Manager is the latest addition to VendorNet’s growing supply chain collaboration solutions. VendorNet StoreNet Manager integrates with a retailer’s host order management or ecommerce system. Online orders that cannot be fulfilled from warehouse inventory are electronically transmitted to VendorNet StoreNet Manager, which routes the order to the best available store for fulfillment based on user-defined store allocation rules. Store personnel access the orders complete with pick list, packing slip, and shipping label through a VendorNet-enabled web portal. The store personnel pick the items, confirms the picked quantities in VendorNet StoreNet Manager, which triggers printing of the packing slips with FedEx or UPS shipping labels, and ultimately the transmission of shipping manifests to the appropriate carrier notifying the carrier that packages are staged for pickup. In the event a store is unable to fulfill all items/orders, they are automatically allocated to the next best available store.

Upon receipt of the shipment by the carrier, VendorNet StoreNet Manager obtains pick-up scans confirming carrier possession, and sends a ship transaction including tracking number back to the host order management or e-commerce system triggering a charge to the consumer’s credit card. At the end of each day, VendorNet StoreNet Manager obtains updated store inventory counts from the retailer’s host inventory management system, and transmits the total item inventory counts across all stores and the warehouse to the retailer’s e-commerce system.

“As Internet sales continue to grow and traditional in-store sales shift to the e-commerce sales channel, retailers need to find innovative ways to cut costs while still maintaining and growing revenue,” states Sharon Gardner, president of VendorNet. “Making existing inventory resources more ubiquitous and proactively expanding fulfillment channels makes a lot of sense from a cost and growth standpoint. Traditionally, retailers allocate inventory and satisfy demand from their web site and stores independently, but this needs to change to maximize sales and inventory utilization.”

Gardner comments further, “Instead of having independent inventory silos, VendorNet StoreNet Manager merges e-commerce and store inventory into a cohesive inventory resource, and makes retail stores a viable e-commerce fulfillment platform that leverage not only store inventory, but also store personnel. This model converts lost e-commerce sales into revenue, and delivers the potential for retailers to realize higher product gross margins by selling down store inventory prior to end-of-season discounts. Taking it a step further, VendorNet StoreNet Manger also enables more accurate forecasting for the ecommerce sales channel because the actual demand per item is now being captured via an order rather than abandoned due to lack of inventory at the warehouse.”

VendorNet’s first StoreNet client, Jones Apparel Group, the parent company of many leading apparel, footwear and accessory brands, has successfully launched VendorNet StoreNet Manager in all Nine West stores across the country. Its’ Easy Spirit, Bandolino, and Jones of New York stores will be live with VendorNet StoreNet Manager before year end.

VendorNet StoreNet Manager is sold as licensed software that integrates with a retailer’s host order management, e-commerce, and retail inventory management systems. For additional information on VendorNet StoreNet Manager, contact Joe Heaney at (561) 265-3939 ext. 109.

About VendorNet
VendorNet delivers web-based supply chain management solutions to multi-channel retailers enabling real-time collaboration with suppliers. Its flagship product, VendorNet Commerce Suite establishes a powerful foundation for solutions that dramatically improve supply chain processes, reduce costs, and strengthen retailer/supplier relationships. VendorNet's client base includes leading retail, catalog, and e-commerce companies such as David’s Bridal, Guitar Center, SmartBargains.com, Neiman Marcus, Norm Thompson, The Swiss Colony, FrontGate, Kraft, Jones Apparel Group, Orvis, and Lands' End. For more information on VendorNet, visit www.vendornet.com


Contact:
VendorNet, Delray Beach
Louisa Rupp
954-767-8228
lrupp@vendornet.com