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By Natasha David

SYDNEY - Australian Retailers Association (ARA) and Eastcoast Property Software (EPS) have signed an agreement to provide a new specialised Web service for retailers, to be launched in November.

Following other software vendors into the applications rental space, EPS will provide retailers with Web-based applications software, management information and comparative benchmarking.

"After delivering EPS Professional to the high end of the market, we now want to access the SME market space," said Elisa House, General Manager EPS.

"By moving to an ASP (application service provider) model in the Australian and New Zealand marketplace, we can expand our traditional base of 350 companies to 20,000 ARA member. With other associations on board we increase to [more than] 100,000."

Retails will also benefit, according to the ARA, with additional service for their membership.

"The ASP service provides us, as an association, with management information to better represent our members," said Phil Naylor, CEO of ARA.

"The focus of many of our members is on retail occupancy costs and lease administration," Naylor said. It is hard to get benchmarking figures for the retail industry.

Based on a per-store, per-month fee structure, the web based software provides specialised functions that manage retail occupancy, lease administration, payments insurance, maintenance, asset management, contacts, diary reporting and benchmarking of key performance indicators.

Key partners in the provision of the service are Optus, Citrix and Progress.

For further information, please contact:

Adam Ramshaw Managing Director Tel: (61 2) 9419 8356 Mob: 0416 040 566 aramshaw@eps.net.au

Ben Jarvis Financial & Corporate Relations Pty Ltd Tel: (61 2) 9235 1666 b.jarvis@fcr.com.au