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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Bid.com International (BIDS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Spark who wrote (3290)	12/8/1998 9:47:00 AM
From: waldo	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 37507

Live auctions coming to Net Toronto firm bids for share in booming industry By Robert Cribb Toronto Star Business Reporter The ascending online auction business, with its stratospheric stock valuations and growing public profile, is about to see a new Canadian firm bidding for market share. Toronto-based Delos Inc. has developed software called AuctionEngine designed to reproduce the immediacy of real life auctions by allowing Net surfers to bid against each other in real time Internet auctions hosted by charities or companies. It's a variation on the more established business model made famous by wildly successful online auction firms such as eBay Inc., which has seen its stock soar nearly tenfold since its IPO in September, and Toronto-based Bid.Com International Inc., a heavy trader on the The Toronto Stock Exchange in recent weeks. Both of those companies allow Net surfers to bid 24-hours-a day on posted items over a period of several days with a fixed cutoff point. In contrast, Delos will offer auctions at specific times, and they will be oriented toward particular goods and events. ''What we do is completely different than the auction paradigm on the Internet,'' said Chris Setchell, Delos's director of marketing. ''We deliver all the things you see and hear in a real live auction, which separates us from the current auctioneering we see being done on the Internet.'' There's going to be a live auctioneer setting bid increments and communicating directly with bidders, constantly updated bids and flashing amber and red lights indicating when items are going, going and gone. And Delos, a six-month-old subsidiary of Toronto software firm Metex Systems Inc., has chosen a flashy and potentially high-risk launch strategy to show off its new wares. Billed as the first simultaneous Internet-television event of its kind, AuctionEngine will take bids in a live online Special Olympics charity auction tomorrow night, which will be co-ordinated with TSN's broadcast of the event. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 'We are definitely pushing the envelope on what the Internet can manage' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bidders can pre-register at tsn.ca, browse the item catalogue of sports memorabilia. Then they can tune in online or on television beginning at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday. It's a risky technical endeavour, Setchell concedes. ''We are definitely pushing the envelope on what the Internet can manage. The fact is, the Internet is a somewhat unstable platform. There will be hiccups.'' Jeff Lymburner, president of high-flying Bid.Com which is on its way to $20 million in revenues this year, said his new competitor's distinctive real time trading structure is also a potential liability. ''It can work, but it requires a convergence of buyers and sellers in the same time and space, and that means a lot of promotional activity.'' After AuctionEngine's inaugural auction Wednesday, company officials are looking to bring major airlines on board to auction off vacation packages and flights weekly or monthly using airline mileage points instead of dollars as currency. That kind of online exposure could be irresistible for many companies, said Jordan Worth, telecommunications and Internet analyst with International Data Corp. Canada. ''There is lots of potential with these points that hasn't really been exploited on the Internet yet,'' he said. thestar.com W