ALISO VIEJO, Calif., Aug. 7, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Buy.com(r), the Internet Superstore(tm), today unveiled its new Garage Sale(tm) service that enables consumers to sell goods directly on their business and social networking pages.
For the first time ever, goods can be bought directly on the profile page, and purchasers never have to leave the page to complete the purchase transaction. With Garage Sale, consumers no longer need to pay listing charges associated with online auction sites, and they can take advantage of significantly lower individual transaction fees.
The Garage Sale capability is currently available to Facebook users, and Buy.com plans to roll out the service to users on other online social networks shortly. Facebook users simply add the Garage Sale feature from Facebook's application suite and upload product information and photos to begin selling on their personal profile pages using Garage Sale's secure transaction capability.
"Anyone who has ever asked a friend if they knew someone who would buy their stuff understands the power of that sales model," said Gene Alvarez, Vice President, Gartner Inc. "Now, when you add the Internet's community, collaboration and sales capabilities, we will see yet another transformation of e-commerce and the dawn of online social selling."
To help Garage Sale users promote product sales, Buy.com will introduce a Garage Sale tab on the main Buy.com Web site later this year, providing a complete marketplace for independent sellers' goods to augment Buy.com's own third-party retailer marketplace platform.
"Garage Sale allows consumers to become personal online retailers using the backing of a major Internet company like Buy.com," said Neel Grover, CEO and President of Buy.com. "As the first company to market with this embedded e-commerce capability, we see tremendous growth opportunities in providing the millions of users on business and social networks with an alternative to eBay and the ability to transform their personal profile pages beyond information-sharing."
The Garage Sale platform is based on patent-pending, embedded, e-commerce technology that Buy.com acquired earlier this year from Shoperion Inc. Buy.com also will use the Shoperion technology to enhance Buy.com's advertising on third-party sites with the addition of checkout functionality incorporated directly within the advertisement.
About Buy.com
Buy.com is a leading e-commerce company with more than 10 million customer accounts, focused on providing its customers with a rewarding shopping experience and a broad selection of high-quality technology and entertainment retail goods at competitive prices. Buy.com offers over two million products in a range of categories, including consumer electronics, computer hardware and software, cell phones, books, music, videos, games, digital music downloads, toys, bags, home and outdoor, baby and sporting goods. Buy.com, founded in June of 1997, is located in Aliso Viejo, California. Buy.com(r) and The Internet Superstore(tm) are trademarks of Buy.com Inc. Buy.com currently competes with a variety of companies that can be divided into two broad categories: (i) multi-category retailers such as Amazon.com and Wal-Mart and (ii) specialty retailers or manufacturers such as Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA and Dell.