Corporations find bargains in basements of eBay
Published: 05 Sep 2003 12:25 BST
That appears to be a price well worth paying for such large companies, which have found that they may be able to get significantly more for their discontinued or end-of-life products through eBay's auction process than they could through a traditional liquidator.
Enterprise software maker SAP recently announced a deal to incorporate eBay's auction process into its company operations. The auction management software will automatically schedule eBay listings and aggregate product data, linking to existing sales channels and software.
"Some of our customers were doing business on eBay on an ad hoc basis, doing some auctions to get rid of excess inventory and end-of-life assets that they couldn't otherwise get rid of," said Ajit Nazre, managing director of the SAP unit that runs the company's eBay service. "They realized it would be much nicer if it were an integrated solution that could be automated to a great extent."
IBM has been selling products on eBay since December 2000, mostly laptops and desktops at the end of their product life cycle or refurbished items that come from the company's global financing group.
"The yields are significantly higher than through the other channels," said Billy Sturtevant, global auction sales manager for IBM. "We're selling to the end user, which is always good; you're taking out a layer there."
It also can be an effective way to attract new buyers, Sturtevant said. About 50 percent of the sales Big Blue makes through eBay are to first-time customers for IBM.
Betting on the big players
eBay notes that most of its business still comes from smaller sellers, estimating that corporations account for less than 5 percent of the gross sales volume on the site. But the company is hoping for the corporate market to play a lucrative part in its future, and Wall Street has taken a sizable stake in that prospect.
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