As AuctionBytes revealed in September, eBay is committed to bringing large, high-volume retailers onto its site through "Operation Catalog." Some of these volume retailers are making their debut during the all-important holiday shopping season, a time that existing eBay sellers rely on for a major part of their annual sales. With the economy in tough shape, the added competition couldn't come at a worse time.

eBay announced an API called "eBay Large Merchant Services" on Monday, and on Tuesday, Mercent, a third-party vendor, announced the launch of a "catalog merchandising and order integration software" for high-volume eBay sellers, integrated with the new API. Mercent heralded the launch of its enterprise seller tools for eBay and PayPal with the news that SmartBargains.com was the first client to adopt its eBay selling solution.

eBay had announced a "Diamond PowerSeller" program in June, in which sellers who achieve $500,000/month in gross sales are eligible to negotiate with eBay on special pricing and other benefits. But with Operation Catalog, high-volume retailers or etailers can come into the program with little or no history on eBay. While eBay won't reveal details, sources have told AuctionBytes that Diamond sellers pay zero listing fees and receive heavily discounted commission fees.

One source told us eBay would give such Op Catalog participants a grace period to conform to eBay's seller standards. Another source told us some participants are able to negotiate an "auto enhancement program" in which their average DSRs (customer ratings) would never fall below 4.6, which AuctionBytes has not been able to confirm.

Sellers who are reported to be enrolled in eBay's special Diamond PowerSeller program include Shoplet.com and Toolup.com.

Mercent CEO Eric Best stated in his company's press release, "Using the Mercent Retail platform and Large Merchant Services on the eBay platform we can quickly integrate sellers into the eBay marketplace. For large, branded merchants looking for automated control over product merchandising across eBay, Mercent Retail is the ultimate on-demand software."

A list of Mercent's customers include: REI, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Fingerhut, Nautilus, Guess, Crabtree & Evelyn, Lucky Brand, Levenger, Fortunoff, Woolrich, Car Toys, Color Me Beautiful, Limoges Jewelry, Saffron Rouge and Gristedes.

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