New trading portal for computer hardware
The Standard - 13 November 2003
Georgina Lee
Information technology (IT) solutions provider Basis Bay says its new computer hardware trading portal, eBasisBay.com, will stir up the region's multimillion-dollar second-hand IT equipment market.
In Hong Kong for the launch of its service yesterday, the Malaysian-based company's chief executive, Praba Thiagarajah, said the portal was the only one in Asia that allowed both enterprises and individuals to trade computer hardware online.
"[Unlike eBay], our niche is that we have the logistics and technical support team to back up our service. Our portal is more specialised in that it allows for sellers to list their products according to thousands of criteria,"' Thiagarajah said.
Apart from second-hand, refurbished computer hardware, the portal also sells unused, new hardware from companies and computer re-sellers.
Thiagarajah said eBasisBay's focus was on the enterprise computer hardware segment, where companies could sell unused computer products such as mainframes, servers and service parts to buyers. Re-sellers could also list surplus stock on the website and seek buyers worldwide.
Individual consumers could trade their PCs or notebooks on a laissez-faire basis, as eBasisBay would not be involved in the transaction once the buying and selling sides were introduced, Thiagarajah said.
PCs listed on the website were often up to one-third cheaper than in the retail market, he said.
In the future, the portal plans to charge sellers an advertisement fee.
For enterprise customers, eBasisBay acts as a custodian for the two sides in facilitating the trade. Revenue comes from the transaction fee, support services and logistics charges, all of which are levied on the buyer.
eBasisBay also monitors users' integrity for its enterprise customers through various checks, including auditing PC users and background checks of corporate users.
Once a deal is done, the company flies in engineers to handle the installation after the hardware has been shipped to corporate buyers by an eBasisBay logistics partner.
The portal, which was launched in Malaysia in August and now employs 18 people for its regional operations, will expand to Thailand and Singapore next month.
Initially, eBasisBay says it will take just 1 per cent of the online computer equipment trading market, but expects that to grow to 5 per cent in two years.
Parent Basis Bay Group was set up in 1996 and specialises in trading mainframe computer hardware. It also provides consultancy services and antivirus solutions.
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