• ChainStore Age Interview with Rite Aid
• Brooks Sports customer case study
• TradeCard launches visibility suite SourceView
• Aberdeen Group Alert on how "Retail Brand Managers seek speed, efficiency and innovation"

Notable Quotes From the Past Quarter

Businesses can achieve greater returns on global trade operations by converging the physical and financial aspects of the supply chain. By better synchronizing the movement of goods and cash, sourcing and finance can work together to drive improved company results. This type of optimized supply chain can be a strategic differentiator when applied to areas such as accounts payable automation, global sourcing management and visibility, and vendor enablement.

   --Beth Enslow, SVP of Enterprise Research for Aberdeen Group

TradeCard will continue to invest in product development and partnerships that build onto a core competence and competitive differentiator we've delivered since 1999 - technology, combined with global delivery capabilities, to automate supply chains within 90 days. Supply chain executives rely heavily on the visibility we provide them with today. SourceView will enable customers to maintain better control of the movement of cash and goods by providing a complete view of data from purchase order through chargebacks, on a single platform, for the first time.

   --Kurt Cavano, CEO of TradeCard Inc

An aspect that was very attractive to us was the added visibility we got using the TradeCard financial platform. In the past, the whole financial transaction piece of importing was fractured. At any given time, we could only see a part of what was going on... (With TradeCard) we have certainty of what we are paying for and we don't tie up the funds before they are needed.

   --Jerry Cardinale, Senior VP of Category Management for Rite Aid

One of the things we do is streamline our payment system by using TradeCard [with both suppliers and customers]. J.C. Penney and Brooks Brothers use TradeCard to make payments to us. All of our big fabric suppliers use TradeCard. It saves a lot of time and money and provides transparency. It is a web service, so we can go to the site and see what's happening with payments, shipments, etc. We have very comprehensive data that comes directly into the ERP system.

[Companies we work with are increasingly] using TradeCard, which is helpful, because everything is in the same system, and we don't have to set up different systems for every account.

   --Dr. Harry Lee, Managing Director for TAL Group

ICICI BANK FIRST BANK IN INDIA TO PROVIDE FINANCING TO TRADECARD CUSTOMERS
Bank offers additional source of funding to exporters for automated transactions

ICICI Bank, India's second largest bank, has signed a partnership agreement with TradeCard to offer pre- and post export financing to TradeCard customers in Hong Kong and India. ICICI Bank is TradeCard's first financial services partner in India and its 5th partner bank in Hong Kong. To read more, go to http://www.tradecard.com/news/pressreleases/icici.html

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TRADECARD LAUNCHES VISIBILITY SUITE TO ENHANCE CONTROL OF GOODS AND CASH MOVEMENT
SourceView™ Monitors Events; Ensures Vendor Compliance; Streamlines Packing, Labeling and Shipment Building; Automates Receipt Reconciliation and Chargebacks

TradeCard is extending its core functionality to synchronize and control the physical and financial supply chain. TradeCard's SourceView™ suite supports purchase order (PO) management processes from PO issuance through chargebacks and enables customers to manage events and processes for vendor compliance, packing, labeling, shipment building, goods receipt reconciliation and chargebacks, to ensure that orders arrive at the right place at the right time. SourceView ™ provides a supply chain control cockpit that sits on top of a series of visibility modules, which tap into:

• Work in progress and factory floor operations
• Buyer requirements for PO, packing and shipping
• Supplier performance evaluations and scorecards
• The extended supply chain, via ERP event management and optimization tools

For full story, go to http://www.tradecard.com/news/pressreleases/sourceview.html

For full backgrounder, go to http://www.tradecard.com/news/pressreleases/svbackgrounder.html

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TRADECARD APPOINTS VICE PRESIDENT WITH DEEP INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE IN ASIA PACIFIC TO DRIVE GROWTH
Former PeopleSoft, Oracle Executive Mark Welles to Manage Sales Across the Region

Mark Welles has been appointed vice president of sales in Asia Pacific to drive growth in the region. Welles joins TradeCard from Oracle (ORCL) where he served as senior director of product solutions for JDEdwards Asia Pacific and was responsible for spearheading business development and product strategy.

Welles is based in TradeCard's Hong Kong office where he will focus on large enterprise sales in Asia. He joins TradeCard with over 20 years of sales experience in the Asia Pacific region including Greater China, Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, India and Japan.

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TRADECARD SECURES US$14 MILLION IN EQUITY FINANCING ROUND
Warburg Pincus Leads Completion of Investment Round to Further Support TradeCard's Growth and Momentum

TradeCard has raised more than US$14 million of equity capital to support its growth strategy for helping businesses optimize global sourcing. Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity investment firm and the majority shareholder in TradeCard, led the round. A number of other TradeCard shareholders and financial services partners participated in the financing.

For the past three years, TradeCard has experienced on-average revenue growth of more than 100 percent per year. "Today, businesses of all sizes are tapping into low-cost regions overseas to reduce costs and compete better," said Cary J. Davis, a Warburg Pincus Managing Director and leader of the firm's financial technology practice. "TradeCard provides a unique formula of on-demand technology, support and financial services that connects buyers and sellers and synchronizes physical and financial aspects of the supply chain. The agility and supply chain visibility provided by TradeCard is a key differentiator in today's world of shifting demands."

For full story, go to http://www.tradecard.com/news/pressreleases/equityfinancing.html

Learn what's new in the financial supply chain management space
Every quarter we will provide insights into important strategic issues related to global trade and supply chain management. This quarter we present recent articles from Chain Store Age on Rite Aid; Apparel magazine on TAL Apparel, one of the world's largest dress shirt manufacturers; Furniture Insights on sourcing in the furniture industry; Aberdeen Group on the Material World event' and Technology Solutions' IT Newsletter on tapping low cost regions.

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CHAIN STORE AGE INTERVIEW WITH RITE AID

Moving Money
Rite Aid deploys Web-based platform to economize international payments
February 1, 2006

An ironic kink in the global supply chain is that cash flow, or lack thereof, represents one of the most onerous hidden costs. The transaction of finances has been an infrequent focus for operational improvements, possibly because there were no clear opportunities for making the routine process more efficient.

However, as more retailers expanded procurement globally, cash-flow bottlenecks became more apparent. Financial transactions are more complex in a global supply chain than when they are contained within domestic borders. Global transactions typically require a letter-of-credit (LC), in which the retailer's money becomes committed early in the process, but neither the retailer nor the vendor can touch the funds until all the appropriate documents are filed to verify that a shipment has been completed. The big winners in this transactional impasse are the financial institutions that sit holding the money and that also collect fees from both retailer and vendor.

No retailer likes to leave its precious cash sitting in a nonproductive state. But that is precisely what happens in a traditional LC world, where retailers are often left grappling with cash-flow issues because transactions are funded prior to when they occur.

Improved cash flow was just one of the reasons that Camp Hill, PA-based Rite Aid decided late in 2004 to implement a Web-based financial platform for transacting payments to its international vendors. The retailer selected a solution from New York City-based TradeCard.

"Another aspect that was very attractive to us was the added visibility we got using the TradeCard financial platform," said Jerry Cardinale, senior VP of category management for Rite Aid. "In the past, the whole financial transaction piece of importing was fractured. At any given time, we could only see a part of what was going on.

With TradeCard, everything is visible to our offices as well as to our freight forwarders and vendors. Everyone can see when the product moves and when shipments have been certified, and Rite Aid can time its payments accordingly.

"This way, we have certainty of what we are paying for and we don't tie up the funds before they are needed," continued Cardinale.

The new system has also helped with forecasting financial planning, enabling Rite Aid to see when payments should move.

To read the full article, click here http://www.tradecard.com/languages/EN/news/articles/chainStoreAge_Feb2006.pdf

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FURNITURE INSIGHTS - OFFSHORING PRODUCTION
Excerpts from an article about creating more flexible supply chains in the furniture industry
By BDO Seidman, LLP

It's no secret that when it comes to home furnishings supply chain trends, furniture manufacturing is quickly moving off shore. New sourcing opportunities are opening up at a rapid rate and imports from the Far East have increased dramatically in recent years as manufacturers chase the lowest cost production possible in order to remain competitive.

Yet, many companies are finding that their existing supply chain structure is not flexible enough to move in concert.

"Going overseas to manufacture furniture more cost-effectively is a good thing," says Kurt Cavano, chairman and chief executive, TradeCard Inc. But, "going overseas without the right technology, without the right attitude, and without the right plans, could be more expensive than manufacturing in the U.S. You need to think about all the costs to make sure you really are comparing apples to apples. It's not just how much will I save on labor, but how much is my shipping going to cost? How much is my duty going to cost? What is the lead-time and what is this going to do to my cash to cash cycle? What does it do to my financial requirements for credit and for cash?"

According to the executive, outsourcing production requires not only greater visibility in the supply chain, but also superior financial supply chain management. Enter TradeCard. Headquartered in New York City, with offices in San Francisco, Hong Kong, Brussels, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, Colombo and Shenzhen, the company is a leading provider of on-demand supply chain management products. Via a web-based platform, the firm synchronizes financial transactions with physical events in the global supply chain, conducting trade transactions from purchase order to financial settlement. Counted among its members are names like JC Penney, Linens-n-Things, Staples, Dick's Sporting Goods, Hi-Tec Sports and Wolverine Worldwide. Last year, Forrester Research recognized the firm as the strategic leader in the electronic invoice presentment and payment area.

With considerable experience in the apparel and footwear industries, the company (which made its presence known to furniture executives for the first time last spring in a presentation to attendees at an American Home Furnishings Association finance committee meeting) is quietly beginning to make in-roads in the furniture business.

"In talking with some of the retailers that we work with, we realized that many furniture companies were about to embark on a journey that is fraught with danger and pain," relates Cavano. "And they had no idea how dangerous and painful it was about to be, because the scramble for low-cost sourcing leaves companies open for incredible problems. We work with companies in the apparel and footwear businesses that have been sourcing overseas for as long as twenty years, and they still find doing it a challenge. The furniture companies had no idea what they were stepping into, and we saw an opportunity to take the technology and the services that we have been offering in apparel and footwear and offer them to an industry that is going to need them...badly."

For the full article, please go to http://www.bdo.com/about/publications/industry/fi_jan_06/newsletter.pdf

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APPAREL MAGAZINE: LESSONS FROM A MEGA-MANUFACTURER
Excerpts from an Interview with TAL Apparel
By Jordan Speer, February 01, 2006

Dr. Harry Lee of TAL Group shares his take on collaboration

At approximately US$600 million in revenue, TAL Group is one of the largest apparel producers in the world, with customers including Jos. A. Bank, Ralph Lauren, Talbots, Nordstrom, DKNY and Eddie Bauer, to name just a few. How has Hong Kong-based TAL Group been able to leverage its size while remaining flexible enough to stay one step ahead of the competition? Apparel checks in with Dr. Harry Lee, managing director, to find out.

Q: Apparel companies are looking for partners that can offer complete high quality solutions and customer service. When we spoke several years ago, you told me about TAL's cutting-edge practice of managing J.C. Penney's inventory. Could you share how your relationship with the company has expanded since that time?

A: We continue to work with J.C. Penney to help them manage their inventory. We ... use our own forecasting software and use J.C. Penney's POS data to directly manage their business.

We are also helping J.C. Penney's smaller and newer suppliers. J.C. Penney wants to pack [different assortments] for different stores, but some of its smaller and newer suppliers do not have capabilities to do that, so we are helping them.

We receive the EDI transmission from J.C. Penney for the smaller companies, and help them pack. We teach them how to use the pick-the-light system, set it up for them and help train their people. In some cases, we're doing forecasting for them. The cost of this service is charged to J.C. Penney. Suppliers do not have to buy any equipment, technology or training [in advance]; they pay as they go. I'm not aware of any other situations like this [in the industry]. We are also helping J.C. Penney by shipping directly to stores, which very few companies are doing. J.C. Penney saves on its costs by not going through its warehouse.
...

Q: TAL Group has factories in many countries (Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Mexico, Macao and a textile plant in the United States). What are some of the challenges of managing an enterprise in so many venues? What are some of the practices you are employing to improve supply chain efficiencies across the company?

A: Achieving advantages in supply chain efficiency is one of the goals we've been working on for many years, both upstream and downstream. ... One of the things we do is streamline our payment system by using TradeCard [with both suppliers and customers]. J.C. Penney and Brooks Brothers use TradeCard to make payments to us. All of our big fabric suppliers use TradeCard. It saves a lot of time and money and provides transparency. It is a web service, so we can go to the site and see what's happening with payments, shipments, etc. We have very comprehensive data that comes directly into the ERP system.

[Companies we work with are increasingly] using TradeCard, which is helpful, because everything is in the same system, and we don't have to set up different systems for every account.

For the complete interview, go to http://www.apparelmag.com/articles/feb/feb06_3.shtml

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ANALYST ALERT:

Aberdeen Group: Retail Brand Managers Seek Speed, Efficiency AND Innovation
By Paula Rosenblum, April 2006

Below you can find an excerpt of this report: The technology solutions showcase at this month's Material World conference showed a way for apparel, footwear and home product brand managers to overcome the challenge of long supply and short demand cycles. A combination of collaborative PLM, extended visibility and automated financial instrument management can go a long way towards reducing risk and improving agility.

Aberdeen Analysis
In the 1990's in North America, Wal-Mart re-set the bar for the retail commodity supply chain. Consumers in large and small towns have come to expect store shelves to be fully stocked with the commodities they need, when they need them. But the 21st century has brought a different set of challenges for brand managers up and down the retail-to-consumer ecosystem.

The Need for Speed
It's no longer enough to have store shelves stocked with towels, white sneakers, underwear and panty hose. More than ever, apparel, footwear and home goods brand managers face the need for speed. The new key to sustainable retail profitability is speed to market for higher margin, non-commodity items. Even Wal-Mart has coined the marketing term "look beyond the basics" in an attempt to boost sales of more profitable items. But fashion changes at the speed of light and even the largest retailers and brand managers can be ill-equipped to keep up. In this new world, the conventional wisdom that styles are set on the runways of high end designers and work their way down to lower priced "knock-offs" over the following 2-3 years is debunked daily. Fashion is fast, and winning brand managers struggle to keep up in a world where supply cycles can exceed the profitable lifecycle of a SKU.

The "Zara Factor" Raises the Bar for Brand Managers Everywhere
The "Zara factor" continues to place pressures on apparel, footwear and retail brand managers. With a "sheep-to-shelf" supply chain of 2-3 weeks, compared to a traditional "fast" supply chain of 6 months, Zara has set a new bar for innovation, iterative design and speed to market that is the envy of other brand managers. Of course, Zara's model is tough to replicate. Its fashion goods factories are typically located close to the point of demand. Most other brand managers source their merchandise across large bodies of water - greatly complicating logistics and increasing transit times. And it remains to be seen whether Zara can continue its own success as it grows in regions like North America, where it does NOT have factories. Nonetheless, the point has been made. The need for speed is a fact of life.

In Aberdeen's December 2005 Research Report, The Business Benefits of Advanced Planning and Replenishment, retailers overwhelmingly agreed their key strategic action to improve their in stock position of desirable merchandise was to create a more responsive supply chain network (Figure 1). Interestingly, only 40% thought they could improve their results by sourcing closer to the point of demand. These retailers are unwilling to give up the cost reductions associated with sourcing from far-away places.

Speed and Flexibility Brought to the Business Side of Brand Management
All the speed gathered in the product development process can be squandered if the business side of brand management is not equally ready to move. The task of on-boarding a new factory can take weeks, and flexibility to move sourcing facilities from region to region can be hampered by lack of clear documentation into requirements of individual brand managers. Enter TradeCard: a software vendor whose roots lie in automating the financial supply chain, but who has expanded out into visibility across the entire product development process. Specifically, TradeCard holds promise in the following areas:

• Ease of modifying import purchase orders, a process that can take weeks under a traditional Letter of Credit relationship
• Reducing time to payment by shortening paperwork reconciliation times from 22 days to less than a week, thus reducing cost of capital for factories and brand managers alike.
• Creating visibility into the status of both raw materials and finished goods across the entire supply chain - literally from sheep to shelf.

TradeCard has the potential to create a new an interesting partnership within the brand managers' organization: The Chief Logistics Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Procurement Officer all can take benefit from TradeCard's software. Logistics managers can effectively plan for staffing warehouses and distribution centers, CFO's can manage their capital more effectively, and Procurement officers and product managers can be aware at all times when their merchandise will be most likely to leave the factory and arrive on store shelves.

To read the full Alert, please click here

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Sourcing From Low Cost Regions To Optimize The Supply Chain
By Marshall Gordon, Senior Vice President, TradeCard Inc.

They're the basic fundamentals of apparel manufacturing: source from regions that provide the lowest production and labor costs, and then reap the benefits. Unfortunately it's not that simple today, particularly as the sourcing landscape continues to change.

The low cost region "target" is constantly moving in response to economic conditions, trade regulations, and unexpected disasters. Today, the low cost region may be China. Tomorrow it may be Pakistan. What's the answer? Agility of operations.

Being agile means doing business in more regions at the flip of a switch. This requires automation and synchronization of processes. Traditional manual and paper-based processes lead to time consuming mistakes that make transactions inefficient. In the accounts payable area this is a major issue, where paper, e-mail, faxing, and data re-keying consumes time and resources. Processes are slow, directional changes are tedious and time consuming, and flexibility is limited.

To read full article, click here http://www.tradecard.com/languages/EN/news/Articles/ITNews_032006.pdf.

TradeCard currently has over 1,900 corporate members, a list that is growing fast.

Brooks Sports Case Study
Find out in our customer case study series how TradeCard's customers benefit from financial supply chain automation. This quarter, we are featuring Brooks Sports Inc., a US-based company providing high performance running shoes, apparel and accessories for runners of all levels. The company's mission: to inspire people to run and be active. Brooks' running gear is designed to help people run longer, farther, faster, and with more enjoyment of the running experience.

To read the case study, please click here

Columbia Sportswear Case study
Columbia is consistently ranked one of the top apparel companies. It continues to perform among the elite businesses in its industry - specifically in annual revenue and profit margin. Columbia's success is tied to its supply chain, an area where it has achieved excellence by working with TradeCard to tighten its relationships with suppliers overseas. Columbia focuses on the physical and financial sides of the supply chain to drive efficiency and growth. By helping its vendors obtain capital and compete, Columbia benefits by lowering its own costs.

Columbia relies on TradeCard for its technology, financial services, and overall support in 40 countries. It has achieved a competitive advantage that consists of: better visibility in the supply chain, greater flexibility, increased capacity, reduced costs, improved quality control and sustained growth.

Please find a link to the case study here.

In the coming months, TradeCard will participate in:

SAPPHIRE
May 17-19, 2006 - Orlando, Florida
TradeCard will have a booth in the "Powered by Netweaver Partner Pavilion". Burton Snowboards will present a TradeCard case study on May 18th.

Drapers Global Sourcing Summit
May 18, 2006 - London, UK
A speaker from TradeCard will talk about creating more efficient retail supply chains. For more information go to http://www.draperssourcingsummit.co.uk/homepage.asp.

As a TradeCard guest you will get a special rate. Please email Marion Faerber at mfaerber@tradecard.com for details.

Financial Director's Summit
May 22, 2006 - London, UK
TradeCard will sponsor this event for companies in the retail industry. For the full agenda, please go to http://www.retailfdsummit.co.uk/homepage.asp.

As a TradeCard retailer guest you will get a special rate. Please email Marion Faerber at mfaerber@tradecard.com for details.

China International Purchasing Organization (IPOs) Summit
June 14th, 2006 - Shanghai, China
TradeCard is a sponsor at this event organized by the China Supply Chain Council. Go to http://www.supplychain.cn/en/cev/?96 for more information.

Be sure to check our web site for updates on where we'll be next.

TradeCard, the leading provider of on-demand supply chain management products, is establishing best practices in global trade with a web-based platform that synchronizes financial transactions with physical events in the global supply chain. Thousands of buyers and sellers in 40 countries use TradeCard to manage their transactions with complete visibility to initial orders through final settlement. TradeCard's global network of partners provides additional automated services on the Platform including early payment programs, payment protection, export financing, money movement and inspection. In addition to process improvements, customers realize immediate cost savings, optimized cash flow, reduced reliance on credit lines and improved supply chain relationships.

Headquartered in New York City, TradeCard Inc. has offices in San Francisco, Brussels, Colombo, Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo and Shenzhen. TradeCard is a registered trademark in the United States and elsewhere throughout the world. TradeCard is located online at www.tradecard.com.