Andale launches online marketplace tool

Andale, the Bangalore-based leading data services provider for online merchants, has announced the launch of Andale Research, a product that facilitates intelligent selling on online marketplaces.

Prior to this India launch, this product was released worldwide about two months ago and has already managed to rope in 70,000 paid customers who are essentially merchants.

Andale Research provides information on pricing, volumes, success rate graphs, measures of demand, category trends and other key metrics.

The product analyses over 624 million items sold on eBay, the world's largest online auction site. These 624 million items represent nearly $22 million in online sales.

While nearly 2.2 million of these items sold on eBay in one year are made in India, nearly 12 million items to the database every week.

Announcing the launch of Andale Research in India, Munjal Shah, CEO, Andale, said, "With this product, merchants can look at a fair market value for their product and also be aware of the new trends that emerge in customer behavior for specific products. It will provide a great opportunity for Indian exporters to gain a significant market share."

Andale has an exclusive arrangement with eBay, which shares its research data. The product called Andale Research is a hosted software, which a merchant can buy at a certain amount.

With this, he can use the tools in the software (product) to sell his product, as well as access research data to obtain selling and buying patterns for his product. All this comes at a cost of $3.95 per month.

Elaborating on the nature of the product, Shah said, "Till date, Indian exporters to US and Europe did not have access to market intelligence for their products. With Andale Research, they will be able get information at their finger tips."

Currently, Anadale's registered users worldwide (1.5 million people) drive over 80 per cent of all listings on eBay each week.

The flagship product of the company has been developed by a team in Bangalore, where a staff of 100 people also handle customer support. Over 10,000 man-hours have been invested for the development of this product. The company is 250-strong.

Last year, trading in online commerce were valued at $60 billion. Of this $40 billion came from small businesses that used eBay, Google and Overture. eBay alone accounted for nearly $20 billion of online trade.

Currently, online trade among small businesses account for 1 per cent of USA's GDP and is expected to touch $400 billion or 10 per cent of USA's GDP by 2010.