Collegiate Retail Alliance Announces Partnership to Offer Copia Interactive's Revolutionary Social Commerce Architecture to the Higher Education Community

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Feb 25, 2011, 09:47 ET

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Feb. 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Collegiate Retail Alliance (CRA), a coalition of more than 50 of the largest independent college stores in North America, and Copia Interactive, the groundbreaking social eReading platform, today announced a partnership to provide Copia's unique social bookstore experience to the students, faculty and staff of universities served by CRA members.

Ten CRA member stores will participate in the pilot program, which will launch in March 2011. Stores will be able to offer Copia's full suite of digital content capabilities, including note sharing, free online discussion groups, and an extensive eBook catalog. Customers will have a completely new way to participate in study groups and discover, enjoy, share, and purchase books, newspapers, magazines, and other content. Customers also will be able to access content on a variety of devices, including tablets, laptops, the iPad®, and Windows® 7 and Android® devices. Copia's services will be individually branded to each store.

Copia's social commerce platform offers a unique experience to each customer. Students and faculty can create customized profiles and libraries to be shared with friends that promote books, content, and conversation that continually keep the site fresh and current.

CRA members deliver high value to the colleges they serve by maximizing their collective buying power and achieving supply chain efficiencies. CRA's new partnership with Copia continues a long tradition of working with the industry's leading innovators.

"Our new partnership with Copia is another example of our ongoing commitment to helping CRA member stores develop and deploy the industry's most successful business practices and solutions," stated Richard W. McDaniel, CRA President and Chairman. "Copia's combination of digital content delivery, ecommerce, and social networking will offer the customers of CRA member stores an incredible new content experience."

"This exciting, new pilot program brings the creativity and innovation of the Collegiate Retail Alliance together with Copia's ingenious architecture, vision of community, focus on collaboration, and full integration of social networking in all forms of media," said Ben Lowinger, Executive Vice President of Copia Interactive, LLC. "The result is the perfect platform for CRA members and their customers."

"The members of the CRA are important leaders in the higher education community, and Copia is proud they have chosen to partner with us to provide our revolutionary social commerce experience to their customers," said Joann Spyker, Copia's Vice President Higher Education. "The digital revolution in higher education will take hold when students and faculty experience the way Copia combines community and collaboration with the hottest features and networks that students are immersed in, and love, today."

About the Collegiate Retail Alliance

Founded over ten years ago by five of the nation's largest independent college stores, the Collegiate Retail Alliance (CRA) is a business coalition that shares and deploys the industry's best business practices. Now numbering over 50, CRA member stores have combined annual revenues of nearly $1 billion.

The organization's wholly owned software company, RATEX Business Solutions (RBS), produces VisualRATEX™, the most comprehensive college store operating system and the only one owned and designed in part by collegiate retailers. In addition to Copia, CRA partners with leading suppliers such as Follett Higher Education Group, NACSCORP, CourseSmart, CafeScribe, and Ingram Book Company.

CRA was awarded the 2009 Leveraging Excellence Award from the National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education (NCCI) for its development of VisualRATEX. For more information, visit the Collegiate Retail Alliance website at www.collegiateretailalliance.com/.

About Copia Interactive and Distribution Management Consolidators Worldwide

Copia is a wholly owned subsidiary of DMC Worldwide (DMCWW), a leading enterprise and consumer technology company with a heritage that spans more than 40 years investing in, developing, manufacturing and distributing cutting-edge consumer electronics products. The company holds deep expertise in sales channel development, supply chain management sales, marketing, distribution and customer service and support. The DMC Worldwide family of companies has sold hundreds of millions of consumer electronics products by leveraging its robust mature infrastructure. For more information, visit the company's website at www.thecopia.com.

The DMC Worldwide family of companies includes DMC Capital Funding, LLC, a leading private equity company focused on strategic investments in middle-market, technology product companies; Xact Technology, LLC, a leading provider of GPS tracking solutions; and Cocoon Innovations, LLC, a leading provider of personal organization and protection systems. The company is headquartered in New York City with offices in Hong Kong. For more information, please visit www.dmcww.com.