eBay has acquired ViA-Online GmbH, an auction-management software company in Germany that operates Afterbuy.com to enable professional trading on eBay.de and other online marketplaces. According to the announcement, Afterbuy is an all-in-one online sales tool and covers all processes of the selling workflow: goods and inventory management, item listing, cross-selling and transaction and pre-sale management. Afterbuy can be connected to external services and business processes such as accounting software or shipping solutions of logistic services.
eBay said the acquisition enables eBay to expand service and support for its German sellers, while allowing Afterbuy to grow its business with the ecommerce expertise and resources of eBay.
The move pits eBay against some of its own third-party developers that market auction-management software to eBay sellers in Germany, including two of the largest US-based services, Marketworks and ChannelAdvisor. ChannelAdvisor recently acquired Marketworks and continues to market its software.
ViA-Online GmbH founders Alfons Denzler and Markus Walber launched Afterbuy in 2002. Afterbuy will continue to operate under its current brand name and will remain in Krefeld, Germany. Further terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
