In a move which is expected to propel B2C and B2B online transacting to new heights in South Africa, iafrica.com - the country's leading internet portal - has added online auctioning to its service offering. iafrica.com's auction solution was launched last week and is powered by dynamic pricing company, SalesBid.
"By adding this facility to its website, all parties benefit. The participating merchants get their goods and services exposed on a high traffic site which overcomes a key stumbling block of e-commerce - ensuring that a company's website can easily be found. It also enables consumers to bid and buy from a range of online auctions on one website, thus saving them the laborious web surfing process," says SalesBid CEO, David Bloch.
He says that the portal site, which essentially specialises in content, is now also able to offer its users the added service of ecommerce and can generate revenue by getting a cut from all transactions which take place on the site.
"iafrica.com gets up to 16 million page impressions a month and the auctioning of a range of products and services - from hotel rooms to CDs - on the site is expected to generate huge revenue. Auctioning went live last week and within the first few days the site received more than 1000 page views a day. Bidding activity has already exceeded our expectations."
"Through the deal - which makes us iafrica.com's exclusive online dynamic commerce provider, but does not restrict us from offering the same service to other portals and sites - we are effectively offering our clients 'syndication'. The concept of syndication, made popular by US company Fairmarket.com through deals with Microsoft and Dell, allows companies to channel their products and services to a potentially unlimited number of sites and exchanges. This superior technology, which SalesBid has now mastered, is instrumental in overcoming one of the biggest challenges of e-commerce, getting your website "discovered" on the vast, expanding Net," says Bloch.
Around 20 of SalesBid's clients are currently streaming their products and services to the iafrica.com auction system. But, this figure is expected to increase rapidly. "Among the hundreds of items which are now available are rooms from Protea Hotels, car hire from Hertz Car Rentals, sports memorabilia, wine, books and CDs." More expensive items such as prime development land, residential property and yachts are also available.
iafrica.com has consistently taken pole position as the nation's premier portal destination since its launch in 1997. An upgraded and revamped site was launched early September offering a host of new functions in addition to online auctioning.
Russell Atkins, marketing manager of iafrica.com, a division of Metropolis Transactive Holdings, says, "Our focus at iafrica.com is on bringing consumers only what they want. Whether it's dynamic content, services or transacting online, we are constantly pursuing new ways of improving the offering to our users - they are our business.
"Partnering with a progressive company like SalesBid is exciting and the introduction of online auctions at iafrica.com is well timed. Our new site design is geared specifically at accommodating additional functionality and e-commerce opportunities.
"We look forward to adding value to both the on-site service to our users and also providing for revenue generating opportunities for vendors. And looking ahead, online auctions is a logical springboard for the application of a variety of dynamic pricing tools powered by SalesBid," says Atkins.
SalesBid's syndication technology has improved upon that of leading US-portals such as Fairmarket.com, by allowing selected products and services to be cleverly channelled to sites which are specific to that community or product. For example, all wine offerings could be syndicated not only to large portals but also across a host of wine-related sites.
Bloch says that SalesBid's syndication technology has a host of other special features. "SalesBid clients only post their catalogues once and SalesBid handles all the connections to multiple portals and exchanges seamlessly and invisibly. Our system operates in 'real time' thereby matching bids and sales across all websites and instantaneously updating all lots once a sale is concluded. Clients are also able to set access rights or parameters for users, such as who is allowed to bid and bid limits for users. This is extremely important in the more complex B2B arena."
With SalesBid's strong and growing client base and iafrica.com's access to 1/2 million online consumers, this partnership is in tune with SalesBid's mission of providing online dynamic pricing solutions aimed at efficiently matching buyers and sellers in the virtual marketplace.
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SalesBid
SalesBid is an e-commerce company providing simple and affordable dynamic pricing solutions - which involves 'active or flexible' pricing as opposed to traditional fixed pricing - to businesses. Its cutting edge technology adds an auction solution or other dynamic pricing component to its clients' websites. The SalesBid solution - is unique in that it allows companies to run dynamic pricing solutions from their own sites, thereby maintaining their corporate image and brand and increasing traffic to their site, while still being managed and maintained by SalesBid.
SalesBid is a subsidiary of Auction Alliance Holdings with stakes held by management, Peregrine and African Harvest Capital.