ALEXANDRIA, VA (September 19, 2001) - The WorldWide Retail Exchange, the premier business-to-business exchange for retailers and suppliers, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with UDEX, an Internet environment for the construction and exchange of product information. Through the agreement, the Exchange will use UDEX as a "Descriptor Standardization Agent" and will deliver a universal standard for product attributes and value descriptions.

"The UDEX/WWRE partnership is a significant step forward in reaching the Exchange's vision of enabling global trading partners to transact with globally standardized data," explained Don Norman, chief information officer of the WWRE. "UDEX shares our vision that providing structured, standardized and quality data is essential to the success of e-commerce. We regard this as an important step towards ensuring that anyone - around the world - who needs to buy a product will be able to find that product."

Through the agreement, the WWRE will be able to ensure product information is standardized before it enters the Exchange environment, regardless of the source. In addition, UDEX's system has translation capabilities, which allows suppliers to avoid manual re-entry of information for each language required by global trading partners

"We're very pleased with this development. We understand from our own experience using UDEX how much it simplifies the way we send and receive information about products," said Philip Clarke, IT and logistics director, Tesco Plc. "The WWRE's agreement with UDEX will help accelerate the process of establishing universal standards for retailers and manufacturers."

"UDEX is providing the WWRE with an industry standard platform for all of its product information, regardless of the original source" said John English, chief executive officer of UDEX. "This standardization makes it easier for the Exchange to continue to develop and deliver value-added services for its members and users."

About UDEX
UDEX is a one-stop shop Internet environment for the construction and exchange of product information. The company provides structured, standardized, cleansed product descriptions for use in the e-commerce environment. UDEX has a custom built classification system with a three level hierarchy and over one thousand attributes. UDEX supports the co-existence of other classification schemas. All elements in the UDEX database are defined and numbered so that users can work in any language. For more information, visit the UDEX web site at www.udex.com.

About the WWRE
The WWRE is the premier Internet-based business-to-business exchange in the retail e-marketplace. The Exchange was created with the fundamental purpose of reducing costs and improving efficiencies throughout the supply chain, employing product and service solutions typical of a global procurement and supply operation. Designed to facilitate and simplify trading between retailers, suppliers, partners and distributors, the WWRE currently consists of 58 retail members from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America with combined sales of over U.S. $830 billion. To date, the WWRE has saved its members over $130 million through the use of online negotiations, its first product offering. For more information, visit the website at www.wwre.org or www.worldwideretailexchange.org.

WWRE Members:
AEON Co., Ltd (Japan, TSE: 8267)
Albertson's (U.S., NYSE: ABS)
Auchan (France)
Best Buy (U.S., NYSE: BBY)
The Boots Company (U.K., LSE: BOOT.L)
C&A Europe (Belgium)
Casino (France, Parisbourse: 12558)
Coop Italia (Italy)
Coop Schweiz (Switzerland)
Cora (France, PSE: 06176)
CVS/pharmacy (U.S., NYSE: CVS)
Dairy Farm International (Hong Kong, SES: DAIR.SI/Reuters, DAIRYNEW SP/Bloomberg)
Dansk Supermarked (Denmark)
Delhaize Group (Belgium, BSE: DEL)
Dixons Group plc (U.K., LSE: DXNS)
Edeka (Germany)
El Corte Ingles (Spain)
Galeries Lafayette (France, Parisborse: 12124)
Gap Inc. (U.S., NYSE: GPS)
Giant Eagle (U.S.)
H.E. Butt Grocery Company (U.S.)
Hy-Vee (U.S)
JCPenney (U.S., NYSE: JCP)
John Lewis (U.K., JLH)
Kesko (Finland, HEX: KES)
Kingfisher (U.K., LSE: KGF)
Kmart Corporation (U.S., NYSE: KM)
Laurus (The Netherlands)
Longs Drugs (U.S., NYSE: LDG)
Lotte Group (South Korea, Q.LOT)
Makro Asia (Bangkok)
MARKANT (Germany)
Marks & Spencer (U.K., LSE: MKS)
Meijer, Inc. (U.S.)
Otto Versand (Germany)
Publix Super Markets (U.S.)
RadioShack Corporation (U.S., NYSE: RSH)
REWE (Germany)
Rite Aid Corporation (U.S., NYSE, PSE: RAD)
Royal Ahold (The Netherlands, NYSE: AHO)
SCA Hygiene Products (Sweden)
Safeway Inc. (U.S., NYSE: SWY)
Safeway plc (U.K., LSE: SFW.L)
Schlecker (Germany)
Seibu Department Stores Ltd. (Japan)
ShopKo Stores, Inc. (U.S., NYSE: SKO)
Sobeys Inc. (Canada, TSE: SBY)
SUPERVALU INC. (U.S., NYSE: SVU)
Target Corporation (U.S., NYSE: TGT)
Tengelmann Group (Germany)
Tesco (U.K., LSE: TSC.OL)
Toys R Us (U.S., NYSE: TOY)
Wakefern Food Co. (U.S.)
Walgreen Co. (U.S., NYSE: WAG)
Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. (U.S.)
Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. (U.S., NYSE: WIN)
Wooltru Ltd. (South Africa, JSE: WLO)
Woolworths (Australia, ASX: WOW)

Media Contacts:
Laura Battle
Edelman Worldwide
+001 312 233 1374
laura.battle@edelman.com

John English
UDEX Limited
+44 1993 832 482
john.english@udex.com

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