Schneider Logistics Marks First Entry Into B2B E-Commerce Logistics Market With Commerx Alliance

Market Wire, 20050229

Schneider Logistics, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Schneider National, Inc., North America's largest truckload transportation and logistics company, and Commerx, Inc.(tm), a leading Net marketplace developer and provider of e-commerce solutions for industrial processing markets, today announced an alliance in which Schneider's business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce logistics services will be utilized on Commerx's flagship electronic marketplace, PlasticsNet.Com(tm) (http://www.plasticsnet.com). Under the agreement, Schneider will become the "ship now" button for the PlasticsNet.Com community, comprised of buyers and sellers of both direct and indirect materials used in the plastics industry.

Working together, Schneider and Commerx have developed several new tools to support B2B e-commerce, including a system which will provide rate quotes via the Internet. PlasticsNet.Com users will have access to Schneider's new e-commerce transportation management capabilities to direct the flow of product purchased on the site, as well as to manage their own outbound finished goods by second quarter, 2000.

Once a PlasticsNet.Com customer makes a shipment request, Schneider's system will instantaneously provide rates for multiple shipment options based on desired transit times and shipment characteristics. As soon as a shipment is underway, PlasticsNet.Com customers will be able to track their shipments and, when the shipments are complete, Schneider will handle freight bill payment.

"We selected Schneider for its longstanding track record of effectively using technology to solve customers' business problems in the transportation industry," said Chris Lange, vice president of operations for Commerx, Inc.

Lange commented that key to the company's selection was Schneider's ability to provide instantaneous, customized transportation; to aggregate and manage multiple modes of transportation capacity; to provide real-time information such as rate quotes, order status, and delivery confirmation; and most important, to bring substantial savings to PlasticsNet.Com e-commerce customers.

"The agreement with Commerx, a pre-eminent business-to-business Net market maker, is a logical extension of what we are currently doing for traditional channel businesses," said Chris Lofgren, chief information and logistics officer for Schneider National. "Servicing freight transportation today is as much about information and communications as it is about tractors and trailers. We are strategically poised with our real-time technology to manage the physical movement of goods for e-commerce."

Schneider currently serves more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500 companies. The alliance with Commerx marks the company's first logistics offering in the B2B e-commerce channel - a channel Schneider is committed to serving.

"This alliance supports our strategy to serve business-to-business e-commerce," said Don Schneider, president of Schneider National, Inc. "Our goal at Schneider is to be the logistics and transportation provider of choice for B2B Internet marketplaces." According to Forrester Research projections, B2B sales of $43 million in 1998 are expected to grow to more than $1 trillion by 2003.

About Commerx, Inc.

Founded in 1995, Chicago-based Commerx, Inc. is a leading Net marketplace developer and provider of e-commerce solutions for industrial processing markets, offering supply chain efficiencies and various Internet-enabled technologies. The company's flagship electronic marketplace, PlasticsNet.Com, is a leading Internet marketplace for the plastics industry. Using the speed, access and ease of the Internet, PlasticsNet.Com simplifies and streamlines the process of buying and selling products and equipment to save businesses time.

For more information about Commerx, visit http://www.commerx.com.

About Schneider Logistics

Schneider Logistics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Schneider National, Inc., provides comprehensive logistics solutions and world-class supply chain technology to business partners throughout North America and Europe. Schneider offers a wide range of services, including outsourced freight management and freight payment, analysis and transportation re-engineering, computer-based systems for shipment control, and carrier management. Headquartered in Green Bay, Wis., Schneider National, Inc. is North America's largest truckload transportation and logistics company, with revenues of $2.7 billion. The company has a long history of using information technology to help its customers compete more effectively, and is ranked within the top 100 companies on the InformationWeek Top 500 List of Leading IT Innovators.

For more information on Schneider, visit http://www.schneiderlogistics.com.