BELGIUM/FRANCE: Cora joins World WorldWide Retail Exchange

The WWRE yesterday gained three more members, among them Cora, the Franco-Belgian retailer. Cora had earlier signalled its intention to join WWRE, which counts Ahold, Walgreens and Tesco among its ranks, but was slow to complete the deal. German drugstore chain Schlecker and RadioShack of the US also joined WWRE, which is currently vying with GlobalNetXChange for domination of the Internet exchange marketplace.The latter group launched slightly before WWRE, and counts Carrefour, Sears and Sainsbury among its members. The main difference between the two groupings is that GlobalNetXChange insists on members pledging a certain quota of their annual purchasing activities to the exchange. WWRE, in contrast, has no such restriction.