A full service auction site in your pants pocket
Mobile phones are ubiquitous: 195 million Americans carry one. For any of the millions of mobile phone users who wish to participate in eBay auctions but aren’t near a computer, they now can flip open their phones and make a bid on any eBay product—no computer necessary.
This is made possible by a growing number of mobile commerce vendors offering services that connect shoppers to Internet retailers and auction sites via mobile phone.
One of these vendors, UnWired Buyer Inc., has just reported a major milestone: The company says it is signing up 500 new users every day. Since its debut in October 2005, UnWired Buyer has delivered more than 300,000 auction update calls to eBay shoppers and interacted in 1 million eBay auctions.
“We are beginning to deepen our relationship with eBay,” says CEO Indy Gill. “The Professional eBay Sellers Association has officially endorsed UnWired Buyer and many big sellers are actively promoting the application in their listings.”
There are more than 75 million eBay users in the United States. UnWired Buyer research shows that more than half of all users miss the close of an auction because they are not at their computers. “Mobile commerce helps eBay to actively reach out to this audience,” Gill says. “It adds value to these eBay auctions by increasing the number of bids on items, which increases the final selling price.”
In other news, the company this month released Version 2.0 of its voice-activated system, which is a certified eBay compatible application. And there’s a twist: The new version extends some of the unique real-time, interactive features of the UnWired Buyer application from the mobile phone to the personal computer. Application features including pre-close notifications, a countdown clock, and real-time updates on price changes and bid status. The application is free to registered eBay users.
UnWired Buyer’s competitors include Paypal Mobile and Motorola’s M-Wallet.
Back...
