Ricardo.de, eBay Germany Square Off in Auction Battle

German auctioneer Ricardo.de Thursday
claimed it has beaten eBay Germany in terms
of audience numbers, and also introduced a new business-to-business auction
format to compete with the imported rival.

Ricardo.de currently boasts more than 400,000 subscribers, and though eBay’s
user base is not disclosed officially due to SEC constraints, it claims to
run 1 million auctions simultaneously, according to an eBay spokesperson.

Ricardo.de today also said it will launch a new international
business-to-business auction site in January. The new recardoBiz.com site will offer flexible
price trades, general and category specific trade information, and
discussion forums, among other features.

Items on the new site will offer a wide range of products, and the buyer and
seller will be required to agree on payment and delivery method between
parties after the auction. Auctioneers can initially offer their products at
six trading locations.

Invitations to tender, Dutch auctions, English auctions, reverse auctions,
barter
transactions, scouting functions and bid pooling are expected to be added to
the feature list in the first quarter of next year.

“ricardoBiz.com will combine commerce, content, and community to establish a
successful trading floor for the business community of the next millennium,”
says Dr. Jan-Henrik Andersson, manager of ricardoBiz.com “Our product range
and services will reach out far beyond
Internet auctions. That’s why we call it dynamic commerce.”

ricardoBiz.de will also go head to head with a similar business-to-business auction property
on the eBay site, eBayPro.com.

eBay
expects to introduce its local auction strategy in Germany in the next year.
The company entered the German market in June with the acquisition of
alando.de AG.