GXS, a leading provider of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce solutions, yesterday announced that Drug Fair has selected GXS Managed Services to increase trading partner automation and enhance supply chain visibility.

With 50 stores located throughout New Jersey, Drug Fair prides itself on offering its customers the widest selection of drug store merchandise at competitive prices. To support these goals, Drug Fair sought to increase the number of suppliers with which it conducts e- commerce transactions and to increase the overall volume of its electronically-based transactions. GXS Managed Services, GXS'leading B2B outsourcing solution, enables Drug Fair to grow its electronic trading partner network with a lower total cost of ownership than investing in additional resources in software or personnel.

Drug Fair orders goods and services from more than 2,000 suppliers through a variety of automated and manual mechanisms, including electronic data interchange (EDI), e-mail, fax and traditional mail. Today, many of Drug Fair's larger suppliers use EDI for the exchange of purchase orders,confirmations, advanced ship notices, invoices and payments. Drug Fair turned to GXS to increase the number of electronic trading partners and also to increase the number and type of transactions supported. Many of Drug Fair's smaller suppliers are reliant upon manual processes for the exchange of information and are reluctant to invest in the tools required to support EDI- based transactions.

To resolve this disparity and to increase the efficiency of its supply chain, Drug Fair is using GXS Intelligent Web Forms (IWF) service to bring B2B e-commerce capabilities to these suppliers. As a component of its Managed Services deployment, GXS IWF service is an Internet- based forms solution that enables Drug Fair's suppliers to easily and cost- effectively trade electronically by simply filling out fields in a customized form. GXS then converts those forms into EDI documents for receipt by Drug Fair. Through GXS Managed Services, the creation and on-going maintenance of Drug Fair's e-commerce program --including all EDI and web form exchanges -- are managed by GXS.

(Press Release by: PR Newswire)