Cooperative Effort Will Dynamically Integrate Catapult Users with Tree of Life Supply Chain for Operational Cost Reductions, Increased Revenue, and Greater Customer Satisfaction

Baltimore – October 3, 2006. Today at Natural Products Expo East, ECR Software Corporation (ECRS) and Tree of Life Inc. announced that the companies are working closely to provide a supply chain and marketing automation link between Tree of Life and their retail customers who use ECRS’s Catapult point of sale and SIS (Supplier Integration Server).

The ECRS solution leverages modern statistics-based reordering methodologies and EDI X12 (Electronic Data Interchange) protocol standards to fully automate the inventory replenishment process. This proven technology provides inventory replenishment based off historical movement and other important factors and can transmit electronic purchase orders to, and receive shipment data from, Tree of Life in a bi-directional manner, providing precise coordination of purchases, received costs, and received quantities. The ECRS system will tightly track all Tree of Life orders and will provide timely email notifications on the status of each order at all critical points in the delivery process.

On the demand generation side, the solution will provide complete retail automation for Tree of Life’s promotional activities. For example, the system automatically downloads new Healthy Value Promotions from Tree of Life and creates Promotional Worksheets within the Catapult system. No manual labor will be required to setup the promotions, and once approved by store management, Healthy Value Promotions automatically start and end during the designated promotional period.

According to Terry Morris, Corporate Vice President of Information Technology for Tree of Life, “Tree of Life is committed to working closely with ECRS to provide powerful supply chain automation to our mutual customers. In conjunction with Catapult’s inventory forecasting and automated reorder capability, the SIS direct link to Tree of Life’s supply chain systems will drive profitability for our retail partners by reducing labor costs and dramatically increasing accuracy.”

“This cooperative effort represents a corporate commitment by ECRS to solve real-world problems for independent natural products retailers,” said ECRS Founder and President Pete Catoe. “Supply chain automation is absolutely essential in today’s big box competitive market. Catapult and SIS are proven solutions that allow independent retailers to fully integrate and automate ordering processes with their supplier of choice, and by doing so, become more competitive, operationally effective, and customer focused.”

About Tree of Life
Tree of Life, Inc. is the world’s leading marketer and distributor of natural and specialty foods, serving customers throughout the United States and Canada. Tree of Life, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Wessanen NV based in The Netherlands. The parent company, Wessanen, has over two centuries of experience in the food industry. Other U.S. operations include Liberty Richter and the American Beverage Corporation.

About ECRS
ECRS has been providing best-of-breed automation solutions to the retail industry since 1989. The ECRS retail framework includes point of sale, self-checkout, back office, inventory management, order forecasting, supply chain automation, membership management, fuel pump interface, integrated video surveillance, digital customer billboard, self-hosted gift card, signature capture, wireless hand-held terminal interface, and a range of other retail automation components. ECRS products are delivered directly and through a global partner network. For more information, go to www.ecrsoft.com. ECRS will be in booths 1232/1234 at Natural Products Expo East 2006.

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For more information, contact ECRS at solutions@ecrsoft.com, call us toll free at 800-211-1172, or fill out our information request form



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