Gloucester, Mass., September 12, 2006 — 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, one of the UK's leading direct home shopping retailers, has selected the TradeStone Suite. The retailer, which includes the J D Williams and Simply Be brand catalogues, as well web sites such as VivaLaDiva.com, will use TradeStone's award-winning software to bring together the various departments involved in product development and sourcing, as well as to automate administration, ensure best practices, and give its designers more time to create innovative products.

J D Williams offers an extensive range of clothing, footwear, household and electronic goods. The recent influence of "Fast Fashion" on the market has greatly increased the number of collections and is pushing business growth. This growth fueled J D Williams' search for a PLM system.

The TradeStone Suite, which includes TradeStone's Unified Buying Engine and modules for Product Development, Sourcing, the Virtual Showroom, retail PLM, Logistics and Finance, makes it just as easy to source products from across the globe as it is from across the street. This is accomplished with TradeStone's Web-based, no-training platform that harmonizes languages, currencies, and lead times for retailers and their trading partners. This means that a manufacturer in Shanghai is responding to the same information in a request for quote (RFQ) as manufacturers in Delhi, India and Manchester, England.

"J D Williams is moving aggressively to triple their collections and introduce fast fashion to their unique customer," said Sue Welch, CEO and founder of TradeStone Software. "The demand for close collaboration and rapid product development with suppliers around the world was a key driver in their selection of TradeStone to support those needs and unify their buying process on a global basis."

Managing the Product Lifecycle

J D Williams is looking to the TradeStone application to alert its team of buyers, quality controllers and merchandisers to all scheduled milestones in terms of product development, including quality assurance tests for fabrics, trims, sizes and a host of other information. The buyers and merchandisers will be able to create product briefs and collaborate with suppliers on the exact design and specifications for each item, reducing room for error and compressing timescales.

"We're very excited to roll out the TradeStone Suite to our buyers, quality controllers, merchandisers, and suppliers," said Paul Short, buying and merchandising director at Manchester-based JD Williams. "With the Unified Buying Process, all our supply chain stakeholders will have visibility into the details of product from conception, QA testing, work-in-process, and final delivery to the warehouse. This will allow us to scale our business and make sure we provide the best quality and responsiveness for our customers."

Key to all retailers is the ability to increasingly bring more relevant products to market, offering their customers a greater selection of quality goods. This is of particular importance to J D Williams and its brands, which cater to the full-figured woman. Consistent sizing throughout the clothing, footwear and undergarments lines are critical for customer satisfaction and loyalty. With the TradeStone Suite, J D Williams buyers, quality controllers and merchandisers are able to translate customer requests into new products, quickly delivering garments and footwear that meet J D Williams' high quality standards.

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
tstockbridge This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it