eBay created a portal to encourage businesses to sell used IT equipment on eBay. The IT Asset Recovery Center allows organizations to find sellers who can sell the equipment, such as laptops and networking computers, for them on eBay. The portal page includes a searchable directory of resellers, which is a subset of eBay's "Trading Assistant" directory (http://www.ebay.com/ta). Sellers who specify in their Trading Assistant profile that they sell in the Computers & Networking category and have successfully sold 50 or more items in the Computers & Networking category will show up in the IT Asset Recovery Center database of providers.
eBay made the announcement last week at CMP Media's Xchange conference. According to Computer Reseller News (CRN), eBay is offering training sessions to attendees to get VARs (Value-Added Resellers) up and running with toll-free phone support. The strategy of going after VARs makes sense. They may be in a position to advise clients about what to do with old equipment when installing replacement equipment.
For some computer equipment, end-users need technical support from manufacturers. But the CRN article reveals the opinion of some VARs that vendors think of eBay as a gray market and may not be willing to support equipment sold through unauthorized channels (http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/dailyarchives.jhtml?articleId=29100297). And some VARs in the UK have expressed concern over the program, according to another CRN article (http://www.vnunet.com/news/1157536).
Sun Microsystems recently began auctioning its servers and workstations directly on eBay, but said they are including resellers in the process (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y04/m08/i06/s02).
The announcement on eBay's Board said sellers who refer clients to an eBay seller within the IT Asset Recovery Center could make them eligible to receive a "finder's fee" when the items are sold, but no further details on the referral program could be found.
http://www2.ebay.com:80/aw/marketing.shtml#2004-08-19175152
http://pages.ebay.com/assetrecovery
