As seen thus far, FreeFlow's Internet-based bidding technology solutions and related business services have been deployed across the broad technology sector including computer hardware, consumer electronics, telecommunications equipment, and electronics companies. However, the vendor is certainly keen to expand into other areas where a limited product shelf life is a common trait. The best candidates would seemingly be the industrial, apparel, and grocery retail markets. To that end, FreeFlow has recently negotiated a deal with a pest control company, and is designing a promotional site for a supermarket chain in Ireland that will allow franchise holders to view what is available online before the stock becomes obsolete.
There is certainly no shortage of Internet inventory liquidation sites available to manufacturers, as brokers on every continent stand ready to consign or post someone's excess inventory. Some of FreeFlow's potential competitors are Liquidity Services (which is publicly held), HedgeHog.com, and LiquiBiz.com. However, FreeFlow believes that its auction approach is fundamentally different starting with its focus on high-tech manufacturers versus a plethora of different industries with differing needs. Also, FreeFlow auctions provide a private forum for a manufacturer's approved brokers to view and bid on the available inventory, whereby auction and "member privilege" dynamics go to work to improve bidding performance, thus returning higher margin recovery to the user manufacturing company.
Another challenge for FreeFlow comes from both prospective users' do-it-yourself (DIY) approaches (at least at first) and from others' beliefs that eBay can do the same job. eBay has been enabling its users to buy pallets of end-of-lifecycle (EOL) products and then sell individual items to buyers, whereby the eBay traders use shippers like UPS or FedEx to move these products from their garages (or other stocking places) to consumers. This is despite the fact that eBay targets consumers, whereas FreeFlow might create and feature a web site too, but for a business to business (B2B), high-touch environment (see Differences in Complexity between B2C and B2B E-commerce). In fact, in late 2006, FreeFlow announced a service partnership with eBay that unites both companies' solutions to help enterprise customers maximize sales of excess, aging, returned, and refurbished inventory. This global offering of eBay's private marketplace technology and FreeFlow's pre-auction and post-auction business services presents customers with an increased number of options for maximizing inventory asset recovery and provides end-to-end services to customers desiring a turnkey asset disposition solution.
By linking with eBay's private auction platform, FreeFlow's customers should benefit from eBay's feature set, which includes a broad range of auction format types, buyer classifications, customization, and data reporting capabilities. Most notably, FreeFlow's customers will gain the ability to sell into eBay's Reseller Marketplace, and thus access the tens of thousands of eBay PowerSellers registered to purchase there. eBay's Reseller Marketplace (which is owned and operated by eBay but is separate from eBay.com) is a marketplace where eBay PowerSellers can bid on inventory for resale. Open only to eBay PowerSellers, this marketplace provides access to inventory in lots for purchase directly from manufacturers, liquidators, and wholesalers.
There is certainly no shortage of Internet inventory liquidation sites available to manufacturers, as brokers on every continent stand ready to consign or post someone's excess inventory. Some of FreeFlow's potential competitors are Liquidity Services (which is publicly held), HedgeHog.com, and LiquiBiz.com. However, FreeFlow believes that its auction approach is fundamentally different starting with its focus on high-tech manufacturers versus a plethora of different industries with differing needs. Also, FreeFlow auctions provide a private forum for a manufacturer's approved brokers to view and bid on the available inventory, whereby auction and "member privilege" dynamics go to work to improve bidding performance, thus returning higher margin recovery to the user manufacturing company.
Another challenge for FreeFlow comes from both prospective users' do-it-yourself (DIY) approaches (at least at first) and from others' beliefs that eBay can do the same job. eBay has been enabling its users to buy pallets of end-of-lifecycle (EOL) products and then sell individual items to buyers, whereby the eBay traders use shippers like UPS or FedEx to move these products from their garages (or other stocking places) to consumers. This is despite the fact that eBay targets consumers, whereas FreeFlow might create and feature a web site too, but for a business to business (B2B), high-touch environment (see Differences in Complexity between B2C and B2B E-commerce). In fact, in late 2006, FreeFlow announced a service partnership with eBay that unites both companies' solutions to help enterprise customers maximize sales of excess, aging, returned, and refurbished inventory. This global offering of eBay's private marketplace technology and FreeFlow's pre-auction and post-auction business services presents customers with an increased number of options for maximizing inventory asset recovery and provides end-to-end services to customers desiring a turnkey asset disposition solution.
By linking with eBay's private auction platform, FreeFlow's customers should benefit from eBay's feature set, which includes a broad range of auction format types, buyer classifications, customization, and data reporting capabilities. Most notably, FreeFlow's customers will gain the ability to sell into eBay's Reseller Marketplace, and thus access the tens of thousands of eBay PowerSellers registered to purchase there. eBay's Reseller Marketplace (which is owned and operated by eBay but is separate from eBay.com) is a marketplace where eBay PowerSellers can bid on inventory for resale. Open only to eBay PowerSellers, this marketplace provides access to inventory in lots for purchase directly from manufacturers, liquidators, and wholesalers.
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