Buying prints at auction

Work Study

ISSN: 0043-8022

Article publication date: 1 November 2000

32

Citation

(2000), "Buying prints at auction", Work Study, Vol. 49 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2000.07949fad.002

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2000, MCB UP Limited


Buying prints at auction

Buying prints at auction

Europe's first Internet auction marketplace for print procurement, where buyers and sellers of print can communicate and conduct business, has opened for business. 58k.com, the global print industry's Internet auction site, aims to broaden the reach and number of business opportunities for buyers and printers, without added cost for either party and without compromising on the confidentiality that the industry expects. When 58k.com, went live in Europe (UK/English first with French and German language sites to follow), it had already been live in the USA for over eight months and has over 4,000 users. The Website enables both print buyers to enter jobs and printers to bid for those jobs anonymously. Neither party pays any cost to participate in the auction. 58k.com takes a 2 per cent commission from the successful printer once the job has been completed. Informal mechanisms are in place to regulate the market against anti-competitive behaviour by either party. The European print market is worth over $130 billion dollars (Forrester) per annum, and 58k.com expects to capture 5-7 per cent of the market within three years. For print buyers, research by 58k.com has shown a total projected cost saving, on average, of 10 per cent for any print job previously quoted. Feedback from the USA suggests that buyers can save up to 25 per cent of their time spent on print procurement. This is because the site offers the buyers a simpler and more efficient means of finding a printer, with direct access to printers who bid in an open auction to complete the job. It takes only ten minutes to complete the electronic job specification, which has to be done only once, in a standard format, so allowing buyers to compare quotes like-for-like. See http://www.58k.com.

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