Andale Boosts Service, Adds Partners
April 7 – 11, 2000
Issue 183
New York and London

Auction business management start-up Andale is enhancing its fledgling service with a slew of partnerships and what it says is the first service-level and support agreement in the auction business. The Andale Auction Business Management Service, which launched in November, gives auction power sellers a single online location where they can manage and post sales on major auction sites (OLR No 167). It currently works with eBay, Amazon.com Auctions and Yahoo Auctions.

Starting in April auction sellers using Andale's Auction Business Management Service will receive an availability, reliability and customer support guarantee at no extra charge. April is also when Andale will begin charging sellers to use the service, with fees ranging from 1%-3% per sale. The guarantee will provide sellers with compensation for losses that are a direct result of Andale failing to meet guaranteed service levels, yet to be released. Andale is also promising to respond to all requests within 24 business hours. Its customer service reps also act as so-called "Auction Advisors" to help sellers with all their auction-related questions as well. These Auction Advisors are also first-line customer support for auction buyers. If they can't help, they forward the query to the seller.

The Santa Clara, California-based company also cut seven partnership deals to enhance its product offerings. CEO Munjal Shah says Andale decided to go with best-of-breed partnerships so it can focus on business management rather than reinventing what's already out there.

For new pricing services it's integrating services from online appraisals firm epprai-sals.com and WorthGuide.com, which tracks and provides prices for all items that are sold via online auctions. Sellers will be able to access or link to the pricing information or appraisals from within the Andale system. It's also partnering with iShip.com, the online multi-carrier shipping service that's being acquired by Stamps.com. New payment processing capabilities will come courtesy of Wells Fargo for merchant accounts, Signio, which is being acquired by VeriSign, for transaction processing and i-Escrow, whose escrow services will be the default payment method on the Andale system.

Andale also inked an exclusive agreement with B2B barter marketplace BigVine.com. The deal will enable Andale auction sellers to list products and services on BigVine.com as well as source goods from other BigVine members to sell on other auction sites.

Shah says there will be additional partnerships in the future, such as with online marketplaces and portal sites. He says the service is still in the "tuning phase," issuing a new release every week to update the service. Plans are to "really ramp up" towards the end of February.