NEWS & MEDIA
Release - August 18, 2005
Doane Marketing Research, Inc. and XS Inc. launch new transactional data product DMR EZTrak® providing manufacturers and distributors with up-to-date grower purchase information
St. Louis, MO (August 18, 2005) – Doane Marketing Research, Inc. and XS Inc. announced the launch of EZTrak®, the next generation of market intelligence for manufacturers and distributors serving production agriculture. For the first time ever, distributors and manufacturers can have access to up-to-date chemical input data for producers based on actual point-of-sale data. The web-based EZTrak® system allows manufacturers and distributors to query aggregated reports by product name and active ingredient with filters by geography and date range.
The new EZTrak® product blends together Doane Marketing Research, Inc.'s 50 plus years of marketing research expertise with XS' proven DataConduit™ point-of-sale data collection and processing technology. This delivers to the ag industry the type of market intelligence that has been available to manufacturers and distributors in consumer and pharmaceutical markets for many years. EZTrak® has been developed in response to long-standing requests from distributors for market information and from manufacturers for transaction-based research that offers farm level data on a real time basis.
"Over the past several months, we have invested in the design and building of a transaction-based market intelligence platform specific to agriculture similar to the consumer-based market intelligence systems that have been available in other industry segments" said Roy Cleveland, - Vice President of Doane Marketing Research, Inc. "Having already been through the startup challenges, these existing systems were able to provide insight into how the system should be structured to meet the differing needs of manufacturers and distributors."
A key element for the success of EZTrak® is the back-end technology. "One crucial aspect of the process is the way in which data from millions of end-user transactions collected from multiple retailers is standardized and then aggregated to protect the anonymity of participating retailers and their customers," said Harry Albert, XS Inc Vice President of Business Development. "This partnership makes perfect sense for XS Inc. and Doane Marketing Research, Inc. Our point-of-sale data collection and reporting processes complement Doane Marketing Research, Inc.'s unsurpassed research methodology to deliver the next generation of market tracking studies."
The EZTrak® product currently reports end user prices for all agricultural chemical sales in twelve Midwest states. Based on enthusiastic responses from retailers, EZTrak® will soon encompass chemical sales from the 48 continental states and will also report volume (share) data. Plans are also being developed to add seed transactions to EZTrak® in late 2006 or early 2007. For more EZTrak® information, please visit our website www.dmrEZTrak.com.
Doane Marketing Research, Inc. is the global leader for providing syndicated quantitative market tracking studies along with qualitative intelligence and analytical services for production agriculture. XS Inc. is an Internet technology and services company serving agriculture and adjacent markets with applications that improve companies' marketing effectiveness, operational efficiencies and regulatory compliance. For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact Roy Cleveland at 314.786.1663 or Harry Albert at 919.327.9515. For more details visit dmrkynetec's web site at www.dmrkynetec.com and the XS Inc. web site at www.XSInc.com.
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Contact:
Harry Albert
XS Inc
919.327.9515
halbert@XSInc.com
Roy Cleveland
dmrkynetec
314.786.1663
roy.cleveland@dmrkynetec.com