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Yahoo returns to the auction business 
Friday, August 02 2002
by Ciaran Buckley


Only months after shutting down five European auction sites, Yahoo said it will
develop co-branded auction sites in Scandinavia with QXL Ricardo. 

The deal with QXL Ricardo to establish the sites in Norway, Sweden and Denmark
follows Yahoo's decision in May shut down its auction sites in the UK and
Ireland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy. At that time, Yahoo also signed a
"preferred partner" agreement with eBay for those markets. 





When the closures were announced, Mark Opzoomer, managing director of Yahoo
Europe, said that Yahoo was planning to focus on the development of advertising
and commerce areas, such as shopping and travel, since these areas were growing
faster and more profitably than European auctions. The only European auction site
that Yahoo continued to maintain was its Danish site. 



Because Yahoo now has a working relationship with both QXL Ricardo and eBay --
both of which operate in many European markets -- it might appear that Yahoo is
competing with itself. But Yahoo denies this claim and QXL Ricardo points out
that eBay has no presence in Scandinavia. 



"Our relationship with QXL Ricardo is entirely different from our agreement
with eBay," said Sue Jackson, corporate communications manager for Yahoo Europe.
"We have a preferred partner agreement with eBay in the markets where we don't
have a presence. The agreement with QXL Ricardo means that Yahoo will continue to
maintain a presence in the Scandinavian market, although QXL will actually be
running the site."



Jackson indicated that the labour intensive nature of the on-line auction market
is one of the reasons why Yahoo chose to withdraw from the European auction
market during its review of its business operations. Yahoo has previously
indicated that it has no intention of winding down its auction business in the
US. 



The companies' new co-branded auction service will be accessed via a jump-page
off at Yahoo home pages in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. It will retain the look
and feel of the current Yahoo auction site and will be co-branded as "powered
by QXL."



Separately, QXL Ricardo has announced its results for the quarter ending 30 June
2002. It had a quarterly turnover of STG1.6 million, up from STG1.55 million for
the same quarter last year. It had an operating loss of STG4.9 million, an
improvement from a loss of STG10.7 million announced in the same quarter last
year. Per share losses were STG0.006 per share, an improvement from a loss of
STG0.016 per share for the same quarter last year. 





In Europe, the company now runs auction sites Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the UK,
Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Spain, Poland, Finland, and Switzerland. QXL
Ricardo has no Irish auction site nor has it any plans to launch one, said a
spokesperson. Instead the company encourages Irish users to use its UK site.