EssentiaLink Partners With Bid.com to Enable B2BIndustrial Goods E-Marketplaces.

Business Editors

BROOMFIELD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 26, 2000

EssentiaLink, based in Broomfield, announced that a five-year contract was signed with Bid.com International Inc., which has headquarters in Toronto (Nasdaq:BIDS) (TSE:BII).

EssentiaLink, a global provider

of services and technology enabling B2B e-procurement of industrial goods, is partnering with Bid.com to offer e-marketplaces functions that enable, enhance, or facilitate the entire e-procurement process. These functions, part of EssentiaLink's MyCity Solution(TM) product, include: various online auction and RFP systems, online payment processing, a robust product search engine, full payment and currency capabilities, multi-language support for Asian and Arabic languages, an escrow service to clear transactions of virtually any size, and complete customization of each e-marketplace with tailored services, including customized chat rooms and news feeds.

EssentiaLink Chief Executive Officer and President Bill Douglas started the company with just one business unit, the Supply Chain Solution(TM), a proprietary online catalog of industrial suppliers.

"We're a horizontal infrastructure provider," Douglas said. "Our mission is to make the Supply Chain Solution(TM) the most comprehensive Internet commodity goods inventory source available, and provide it as an enhancement to any and all industry verticals engaged in e-procurement."

Tim Tucker, the company's vice president of Business Development, described a new EssentiaLink business unit -- the MyCity Solution(TM): "This product features the Supply Chain Solution(TM), as well as all the technology and services necessary to enable an industrial goods e-marketplace to take form."

MyCity Solution(TM) is targeted to small- or medium-sized businesses that can harvest time and cost savings by moving their transactions from brick and mortar and expensive EDI systems to the Internet.

"We shepherd local buying groups through the whole process of setting up an e-marketplace," Tucker said, "and integrate and customize existing B2B marketplace systems with MyCity Solution(TM) functions."

Douglas cited statistics which show that the movement of commodity goods procurement online is a steadily growing and irrevocable trend: "Purchasing agents are responding to the ubiquitous mandate to cut costs," he explained.

"The Supply Chain Solution(TM) online environment promotes supplier competition which automatically lowers prices. And suppliers are happy with it because they have a greater market outreach and generate more sales. The ease, convenience and time savings e-procurement offers produces cost savings as well."

EssentiaLink can be reached at 303/474-2020, http://www.essentialink.com or e-mail info@essentialink.com.