Andale Broadens Auction Management Services
By Susan Mael

Andale is plowing forward with its next generation of services for online auction sellers. Next week the Mountain View, California web-based auction business management service start-up will be launching the Andale Merchant Network to benefit both its merchants and their customers. The idea behind the Network, says CEO Munjal Shah, is to "get buyers to look for Andale sellers." The sellers are among the 4% responsible for 80% of the selling on online auction sites. Until now, Shah notes, Andale provided tools to help automate selling on auction sites. With the launch of the Merchant Network, it becomes more of a complete business management service. Buyers will benefit from knowing they're doing business with a trusted seller and also from some Buyer Rewards, the first of which is a rebate of up to $3.20 on shipping charges through June 7. The Merchant Network introduces ExpressPay, which Andale claims is the first automated checkout in the auction industry to span multiple sites. It supports Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, checks, BillPoint, Amazon 1-click or money orders. Additional merchant benefits include enhancements to services that help sellers complete sales quickly, such as expanded ad generation tools, a mail log to send and keep track of e-mails and a reminder list among others. All listings posted by Andale sellers on auction sites such as eBay, Amazon and Yahoo will have a logo identifying them as part of the network and will share some of the same characteristics, such as location of return policy and shipping information. The cost of the new services will be rolled into the standard fee.

In addition to the 200,000 sellers in its network, Andale has a new, large corporate customer. Avcom, a $500 million Sun reseller, has signed a two-year agreement to sell more than $100 million in Sun equipment to marketplaces as a member of the Andale Merchant Network. The start-up also snagged a partnership with auction network FairMarket, which has agreed to highlight Andale merchants across all its merchant sites, giving them the "Stellar Seller" status usually reserved for high-volume sellers.

Then there's the deal with Intuit to integrate Andale with QuickBooks 2000 Site Builder. The planned integration will allow a small business with a QuickBooks 2000 Site Solutions web site to post items for sale on a number of auction sites with just a few mouse clicks. The business will be able to list multiple items on multiple auction sites and manage them simultaneously and in real-time from the Andale remote control console.