AUCTIONHUNTER - YOUR KEY TO BUYING AND SELLING A BARGAIN (From Warrington Guardian)

AUCTIONHUNTER - YOUR KEY TO BUYING AND SELLING A BARGAIN

THE New Year begins with a state-of-the-art marketplace where any home can become an Auction House!

Newsquest Media Group, owners of the oldest surviving newspaper in the world, founded over 300 years ago, has begun 1999 by unveiling an internet marketplace for almost every home.

England's largest newspaper group with 178 titles, including the Crewe and Nantwich GUARDIANS, Newsquest launches AuctionHunter(www.AuctionHunter.co.uk) on January 18. This brand new web-based service enables individuals to buy and sell all manner of items in auctions which take place live over the Internet.

Launching the new site, Jim Brown, Executive Chairman of Newsquest Media Group, said this was one more exciting link in the company's commitment to the new media.

"We see the Internet as a marvellous medium through which to strengthen our relationship with the many communities we serve. We had originally set out to protect our business. What we've found is another business. We're proud to be at the forefront of web publishing and to have this brand-new site to help pioneer auctions over the Internet."

As well as providing fun for users, Internet auctions are becoming big business in the US and now comprise more than 20% of E-commerce web sites.

Newsquest's site is powered by the leading American network, Auction Universe (www.auctionuniverse.com), a pioneer in bringing the online auction process to classified advertising and sales.

Auction Universe is part of the Classified Ventures Company which is funded by eight leading American media companies. The US site has 6,000 categories as well as specialist "Collector Hubs" where buyers and sellers can get the latest news and ask experts about the items. Newsquest will have additional "Ask the Experts" pages, news and features on its site.

Newsquest's widespread network of 'This is' digital town and community sites across the country will all link to it. Each 'This is' site is a one-stop gateway for the local community with the wide-reaching content of each of Newsquest's 178 local newspapers and searchable databases covering leisure, shopping, and need-to-know information like local tourist attractions plus a comprehensive Find It directory listing more than 1.8 million businesses across the UK.

Iain Aiken, regional managing director of Newsquest, who heads the group's new media business, said small collectables such as cigarette cards, Star Wars figures and old postage stamps, would be among items to be auctioned initially. But users would be able to buy and sell cars and larger items at a later stage.

In the US, the Auction Universe site offer cars, boats and planes as well as properties, and there are special interest sales like the "Art of Impeachment" auction when over 30 pieces of original editorial cartoon panels were auctioned depicting the current impeachment and Presidential sex scandal.

In another Internet sale leading up to Christmas, celebrity memorabilia was auctioned including Marilyn Monroe's sun glasses, Frank Sinatra's cufflinks and Fred Astaire's and Sammy Davis Jr's cigarette lighters.

Auction Universe also partnered with WebCharity to help charities leverage the power of the Internet to raise money offering items for auction including a signed boxing glove in a display case from Muhammad Ali with a Certificate of Authenticity.

HOW ONLINE AUCTIONS WORK

NEWSQUEST suggests newcomers take a few minutes to browse and get familiar with the contents. These break down into two main areas: items for sale, and articles and news. There's a master list of categories of the items for sale.

For each item, there's a description, the Start At price (the starting bid), the Bid At price (what the price is currently), and when the auction closes. There's also an icon to show whether there's a photo with any item.

When you're ready to start bidding you need to register (which is free and only takes a minute) and receive a password.

You then have two choices. You can name a price which you hope will be just high enough to win. Or you can take advantage of RoboBid, Newsquest's special service which automatically executes bids up to a pre-determined amount. You enter the maximum you're willing to pay and RoboBid will automatically handle the bidding in your absence, upping the ante incrementally until it reaches your maximum amount.

Recent bidding in the US on Auction Universe for a signed Spice Girls poster opened at $5 (£3) and over the course of 48 hours reached $140 (£86)!

You will be emailed automatically if your Robobid maximum price is reached and until the last day of the auction TO let you know if you've been outbid so that you can come back and increase it if you want.

Listing an item for auction is simple and cheap - just 20p. Create a balance in your seller account with any major credit card using a secure server and the site walks you through the procedure in a step by step tutorial.

It's all made as simple as possible and explains why thousands of users in the US have found it such good fun. As thousands more can now discover for themselves in Britain.

ABOUT NEWSQUESt

Newsquest (www.newsquest.co.uk) is the largest regional newspaper publisher in England with 178 newspapers with a weekly circulation of 8.0 million copies and 9.8 million readers. With the introduction of its own audiotext telephone information system in September 1994 and its first, live Internet site in August 1995, Newsquest has been at the leading edge of new technology from the outset.

Every Newsquest title was on the Internet in 1997 and each of its 13 regions developed a web site making it the first major UK regional newspaper group to achieve this. They all now offer a comprehensive Internet design, building and hosting service linked to their own high-profile sites.

Newsquest is a founder member of AdHunter, the joint venture with six other regional publishers which provides a medium for putting thousands of classified advertisements onto the Internet from within the regional press.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.