Financial Post
Tuesday, November 17, 1998
Online auction house
Rogers and Bid.Com launch e-com site for Canadians
By MICHAEL LEWIS
The Financial Post
Rogers New Media Inc. and online auctioneers Bid.Com International Inc. yesterday unveiled an e-com site with a difference.
The co-designed page -- www.bid.com -- sells brand name computers, sports equipment and other products in exchange for Canadian dollars, with Canadian warranties attached, and with dedicated Canadian customer service.
"The Web has hundreds of auctions and the online market is booming with the current value at $5.2-billion (US)," said Paul Godin, Bid.Com co-founder and chief executive. "But Canadians are at a disadvantage because these are American sites that do not accept Canadian currency or extend warranties beyond the U.S. border."
Bid.Com offers an Internet auction in two formats, Top Bid, a traditional ascending price version, and the Dutch auction, where item prices decline over time.
They're intended to be a dynamic form of electronic commerce that promise Net shoppers more entertainment than catalogue style, fixed-price online retailing. Bid.Com also uses a unique, proprietary technology that it says can be easily licensed to others.
The company, which began in the early 1990s as an idea sketched out by Mr. Godin on a table napkin, debuted on the Toronto Stock Exchange in February, reaching an intraday high of $3.90.
Since then, the stock has posted a slow but steady decline, touching a intraday low of 60c last month after Bid.Com reported an $8-million loss for the first six months of 1998. South of the border, shares of Internet auction leader Onsale Inc. have traded in the $11 (US) to $36 (US) range.
Investors had shrugged off Bid.Com's licensing and partnership arrangements with America Online, Torstar Corp. and Rogers Communications Inc. subsidiary Rogers New Media.
The Canadian online auction site, which follows a successful 1996 U.S. version of Bid.Com, is part of a $6-million, three-year marketing services agreement with Rogers signed in July.
The situation improved in the past few weeks, according to co-founding partner Jeffrey Lymburner.
The firm's shares continued upward yesterday, gaining 20c to close at $1.94 on heavy volume.
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