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To: GST who wrote (70960)	7/30/1999 8:21:00 PM
From: mogwai8myball	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Looks like Capt. Kirk is gonna stock it to Ebay. From News.com: Priceline may offer auctions among consumers By Bloomberg News Special to CNET News.com July 30, 1999, 10:05 a.m. PT WASHINGTON--Priceline.com may extend its "name-your-price" concept to online bargaining between consumers, creating further competition for Internet auction house eBay. Priceline, based in Stamford, Connecticut, has a patented business method that enables consumers to name their own price for goods and services sold by airlines, hotels, and car dealers. In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Priceline said it may license this method to a "consumer-to-consumer transaction business,'' controlled by Jay Walker, Priceline's founder and vice chairman. If Priceline does proceed, it would be the second time this year that a marquee company has challenged eBay in the online auction market, one of the few Internet businesses to consistently generate profits. Amazon.com, the largest online retailer of books and music, announced in March that it would add auctions to its Web site. [an error occurred while processing this directive]"Everybody agrees eBay has more competition coming to the marketplace," said Marc Berens, president of Berensgallery.com, an internet auction site for artwork and antiques that is based in Houston. "EBay will not have this dominance over the market three years from now." The consumer-to-consumer business is one of two new ventures that are currently under consideration at Priceline.com, according to the SEC filing. The other business would enable consumers to use the Internet to name the price they are willing to pay for retail merchandise. A Priceline.com spokesman declined comment on the new concepts, stating that the company must observer a quiet period while registering to sell common stock and convertible notes. The registration statements for the securities sales said that priceline.com might use some of the proceeds to invest in or make loans to the two businesses The SEC filing provided few additional details and at least one analyst said she had not received any more information from the company. However, priceline.com left little doubt about the competitive impact of a decision to help consumers sell their used gadgets and goods. "If we expand into the consumer-to-consumer market either directly or through a licensing arrangement, we will face competition from established web site operators such as eBay," priceline.com said in the SEC filing. The attractions of the auction market are easily seen in eBay's stock market valuation of $13 billion. Another enticement is growth: the person-to-person auction market is expected to grow from $2.3 billion this year to $6.4 billion by 2003, according to estimates by Forrester Research. At present, priceline.com links consumers only to businesses, enabling travelers to make bids for airline tickets, guaranteed by a credit card, at whatever price they wish. Priceline then seeks to match the offers with an inventory of airline tickets supplied by companies such as Delta Air Lines and Trans World Airlines. The concept has proven increasingly popular among consumers, who submitted 1.87 million offers during the second quarter of this year, up from 492,240 during the same period in 1998. Priceline.com subsequently extended the name-your-price concept to the purchase of hotel rooms, mortgages and automobiles. Part of Priceline's business strategy is to expand the name-your-price concept to other areas of e-commerce. That's where the consumer-to-consumer and retail merchandise ideas come in. Priceline would take a sideways sort of route in entering these businesses, according to the SEC filing. Its involvement would include licensing the Priceline.com brand and the name-your-price concept to two new companies, as well as possibly making an investment in them. The two companies who may receive the licenses are owned by Walker Digital which in turn is controlled by Jay Walker, the vice chairman. Walker expects to ''devote a considerable portion of his time'' to developing and implementing the consumer- to-consumer and retail merchandise Internet businesses, the SEC filing said. The consumer-to-consumer business would allow buyers to make conditional purchase offers to acquire used goods, such as stereos, from other consumers. Presumably, the seller of a stereo could then leaf through and then select one of the offers collected by the Priceline business. Entering this business will present challenges for Priceline, such as how to prevent fraud. Moreover, consumers can't be as sure they will receive quality goods when buying from other consumers as opposed to businesses. "You are working with the masses and you have absolutely no guarantee as to the quality of the radio Mr. Smith is selling,'" said Evie Black Dykema, a consumer e-commerce analyst at Forrester Research. (end) PCLN is a nifty idea. It's a screaming buy in the 30s. C'mon (down) GNET.