Online marketplaces and corporate auction-sellers will gather in North Carolina later this month to discuss the benefits and challenges of selling online. ChannelAdvisor Corporation, an auction-management solutions provider, will host the "ChannelAdvisor Strategy Summit" featuring speakers from eBay, Amazon, uBid and AOL. Industry analysts from Forrester Research, Gartner and Legg Mason will discuss best practices. And managers from companies like Sears, Motorola and IBM will reveal solutions to real-world ecommerce challenges.

One session will discuss "auction angst," a disorder that some companies experience when thinking about exposing their brands on online auction Web sites. Another session promises to identify core metrics and will describe how to track them in order to increase online sales.

"As an alternative channel for liquidated and excess goods, marketplaces can deliver high net cost-recovery and new customers for manufactures and retailers," said Carrie Johnson, an analyst at Forrester Research.

While eBay was considered an online flea market in its early days, it has been trying to attract sellers of high-ticket items like automobiles, consumer electronics, real estate and other "practicals." Some manufacturers and retailers still view auction sites solely as a way to rid themselves of excess inventory, but others have seen marketplaces as a way to acquire new customers and promote their brands.

ChannelAdvisor competes for enterprise sellers with other auction management firms. A chart of services for all levels of sellers may be found at http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/pages/ams.

The three-day ChannelAdvisor summit will be held in Research Triangle Park. Attendance at the event is by invitation only. http://www.channeladvisor.com/summit