An alliance of nearly 100 high-tech companies, including Microsoft, Dell, Lycos and Excite@Home is reportedly preparing to take on online auction giant eBay.
FairMarket is establishing a network that will share each site's auction. The network will be announced on Monday, according to various reports.
Rather than creating one megasite, each site will remain independent, according to reports. For example, a listing for a clock posted on the Lycos site will subsequently appear in the Microsoft auction site as well.
Eventually the site posting an item sold will receive 1% of the sale and whichever site actually sells the item will also get a cut of 1%, with FairMarket getting a 1% share as well. Excite@Home and Lycos will not charge fees at first, though Microsoft will, The Wall Street Journal reports.
EBay has retained dominance in the online action market despite challenges from newly launched auction sites at Yahoo, Amazon.com and Microsoft's MSN. The auctioneer's well-publicized recent technical problems, however, may have increased eBay's vulnerability.
By pooling its considerable resources, the new auction alliance hopes to match or beat eBay's nearly 3.5 million reserve of products for sale. FairMarket currently oversees auction sites for Lycos, Dell and CompUSA.
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