By Christopher Saunders
Online merchants using
Infopia's
hosted storefront now will gain a new outlet for marketing their
products: Overstock.com Auctions.
The
agreement between Salt Lake City-based Infopia and Overstock.com
enables clients of Infopia's Marketplace Manager solution to
simultaneously sell items on their own sites while listing available
inventory on Overstock's recently launched auctions site.
Similarly to storefronts that provide merchants with the ability to
also list products on eBay, the Infopia-Overstock solution (which
relies on an add-on module to Marketplace Manager) automates the
process of creating Overstock Auctions listings based on e-tailers'
existing inventory and using a pre-set seller profile.
The
solution also helps merchants track auction activity and payments,
which are tied into Infopia's shopping cart system.
However, merchants will be required to pay the usual fees associated
with placing an item up for auction, of course.
"Our
clients have been asking for a seamless integration with
Overstock.com Auctions since its launch in September," said Infopia
Chief Executive Bjorn Espenes. "This integration provides
high-volume sellers with an auction-listing and management system
for Overstock Auctions that ensures a high-quality buying experience
for consumers."
The
move makes Infopia the first major storefront vendor to integrate
Overstock.com's new auctions -- which it accesses via Overstock's
API -- into its solution. Infopia already enables its merchants to
list products and track auctions and fixed-price sales on eBay,
Yahoo! and Amazon. Additionally, the e-commerce platform offers
feeds to aggregators like BizRate.com and Shopping.com.
The
move also is a boost for Overstock Auctions, which is positioning
itself as an alternative to eBay and other established auction
players.
"Overtock.com
Auctions' lower fees, volume discounts, and high number of visitors
per auction are proving attractive to online sellers looking for
better returns," said Holly MacDonald-Korth, Overstock.com's vice
president of auctions. "Infopia offers a powerful platform that
makes it vastly easier to list inventory. I hope the community will
take full advantage of it."
Overstock
Auctions also hopes to differentiate itself by integrating personal
ratings and other elements of social networking -- a concept popularized
by sites like Friendster, MySpace, Orkut, and others.
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