Kmart and Target are part of a group of 11 leading retail companies from four countries forming a Web-based retail exchange with combined sales of $300 billion.

The venture also includes U.S.-based Albertson's, Safeway and CVS; British retailers Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Kingfisher; French groups Casino Guichard-Perrachon and Auchan; and Dutch firm RoyalAhold. The new Web-based, business-to- business exchange is expected to begin operating by midyear. It is designed to facilitate and simplify trading between retailers and more than 100,000 suppliers, partners and distributors. Combined, the group operates more than 30,000 stores. French-Belgian retailer Cora is expected to join soon. The exchange aims to provide publicly available data together with private price and promotion information between multiple buyers and sellers, as well as act as the means for auctioning products. Initially, the founding members will each hold 5 percent of the exchange, allowing others to join later. In the first few years, investment in the partnership is expected to amount to about $100 million, and members say savings generated from the participating retail companies are expected to rapidly exceed costs.