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Emerald Acquires Outdoor and Sporting Goods-Focused B2B Purchasing Platform

Emerald Holding has completed its acquisition of PlumRiver LLC, an international provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology through its Elastic Suite solution. The Elastic Suite platform streamlines the wholesale buying process for both brands and retail buyers, offering a digital year-round transactional platform for use by Emerald’s customers.

The PlumRiver Elastic B2B platform bridges gaps between sellers’ order processing systems and purchasers, allowing brands to sell directly to their buyers using print-free digital product catalogs and merchandising technology. Key client brands include Patagonia, The North Face, Timberland, Vans and Puma. PlumRiver’s experience with outdoor and sporting goods companies will complement Emerald’s portfolio of show brands including Outdoor Retailer and Surf Expo.

The acquisition also will accelerate Emerald’s strategy to provide 365-day-per-year engagement for its customer base, regardless of location, by significantly expanding its digital commerce capabilities and providing its customers with robust transactional functionality including enterprise-level integration to brands’ ERP systems. These integrations will help customers manage orders, real-time inventory and product merchandising.

“Over the course of 2020, we launched many digital product offerings focused on customer engagement, new customer acquisition and delivering high-value customer solutions,” said Brian Field, COO of Emerald in a statement. “From our customers’ feedback, the highest value of these needs is clearly centered on the transaction between buyer and seller. Through our acquisition of PlumRiver and the Elastic platform, we now have the capability to offer a full spectrum of bundled solutions to our customers — from product discovery and lead-generation to transaction — across both in-person, face-to-face events as well as year-round, digital opportunities.”

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Emerald Holding is the parent company of G3 Communications, publisher of Retail TouchPoints.

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