Gloucester, Mass., January 15, 2007 -- TradeStone Software, the leader in delivering domestic and international sourcing, product lifecycle management (PLM) and order management through the Unified Buying Process ™ , today announced that J D Williams is the latest customer to go live with the TradeStone Suite. J D Williams, one of the UK's leading direct home shopping retailers, which includes the J D Williams and Simply Be brand catalogues, as well web sites such as VivaLaDiva.com, uses TradeStone's award-winning software to track critical milestones during the import and domestic purchasing process, eliminating redundant spreadsheets and facilitating timely and accurate management reporting.

J D Williams offers an extensive range of clothing, footwear, household and electronic goods through their catalogues and website. Their most popular offerings include an extensive selection of women's corsetry and a growing line of menswear. The recent influence of "Fast Fashion" on the market has greatly increased the number of collections offered. These collections are provided through a variety of market offerings, of which there are in excess of 500, via major catalogues, leaflets and the web. The need to quickly collaborate with suppliers around the world and develop new seasonal offerings and limited edition programs is critical for J D Williams' success. J D Williams' buyers and merchandisers are using the TradeStone Suite to create product briefs and collaborate with suppliers on the design and specifications for each item and aim to reduce errors and compress the design-to-delivery cycle.

"With the increase in consumer pressure and competitiveness on the High Street across Europe, we're seeing retailers shift from two main seasons of fashion collections to six, nine, and twelve per year, rolling new merchandise into the business on an almost continuous basis. This can be very taxing on the supply chain, especially if it is stretched out into the Far East, across several countries and product groups," stated Marilyn Stemler, Retail Merchandising & Supply Chain Business Solutions for IBM Global Business Services. "As in the case with J D Williams, the best way to merge global sourcing initiatives with fast fashion imperatives is to unify the buying process and the systems used to manage it. Retailers need to streamline their buying process and not over-complicate it."

Key to this particular retailer is the ability to work with suppliers on costing a wide range of size offerings. Understanding the changing amount of fabrics, trims, and construction components across a broad range of sizes is critical to costing out a garment, as well as properly assigning the price point and margin.

"On our base of around 600 suppliers we now have the ability to break out the costing for a wide range of sizes on our requests for quote," said Paul Short, buying and merchandising director at Manchester-based JD Williams. "With this delineated costing information, we're able to make better buying decisions for our own customers based on cost, quality, and time to market."

"Rapid adoption is important when introducing any new enterprise-wide software into an organization; but especially so when the software facilitates collaboration and product development across the globe," stated Sue Welch, CEO of TradeStone Software. "With TradeStone for PLM and Sourcing, J D Williams buyers, quality controllers and merchandisers are able to translate customer requests into new products, quickly delivering fashionable garments and footwear that meet J D Williams' high quality standards. This is the Unified Buying Process in action and is why TradeStone is becoming known as the software that merchants love."

About J D Williams
J D Williams is part of J D Williams & Company Limited, the UK's leading direct home shopping company, operating over 20 successful catalogue brands. Our catalogues offer a huge selection of clothing and other products for all ages and sizes. All our clothes are designed to provide the best fit at the best value, and we are specialists in the area of larger size women's wear.

The company was founded in 1875 by James David Williams, who in 1882 was the first to make use of the UK's parcel post service, to send his company's products direct to his customers. The formula of providing quality, fashionable, value for money clothing direct to customers proved increasingly popular towards the latter end of the 20th Century and J D Williams enjoyed significant growth. This continuing growth has ensured J D Williams is the most successful direct home shopping company in the UK today, with over 2 million customers and 4,000 employees.

J D Williams is part of N Brown Group plc.

About TradeStone Software, Inc.
TradeStone Software enables retailers and manufacturers to plan, design, collaborate on and purchase goods from across the world as easily as from across the street. TradeStone’s Unified Buying Engine uses Web services technology to layer across an organization’s existing infrastructure while its modular software fills in buying process gaps to provide a single view, access and interaction across the entire procurement process. The first and only complete solution for global sourcing, product lifecycle management, and unified order management, TradeStone’s intuitive "No Training" technology helps people throughout the supply chain to collaborate globally, enabling users to focus on speeding innovative products to market. Marquee customers include American Eagle Outfitters, The Children’s Place, Deutsche Woolworth, Ocean State Job Lot, Pacific Alliance and Federated Department Stores. TradeStone Software is based in Gloucester, Mass. and can be found on the Web at http://www.TradeStoneSoftware.com.

Contact:

Tania Stockbridge
TradeStone Software
978-281-3723
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