Fididel is new kind of auction site that aims to draw in buyers and sellers who aren’t happy with the lack of real-time negotiation on sites such as eBay or Priceline.com. The site gives buyers and sellers the ability to chat in real-time and quickly agree upon a sales price.
The San Jose, Calif.-based company, which VentureBeat uncovered a couple of months ago, appears to fill a hole in the auctions market that those big companies have long left uncovered.
Hal Wendell, CEO and founder of Fididel (pictured left), said he dreamed up the idea out of frustration with sites such as eBay. He was trying to buy an older wooden tennis racquet and kept losing out in final bids. He also didn’t want to get stuck paying a high “buy it now” price, referring to the feature on eBay where you can end an auction immediately by paying a price set by the seller. Rather, he wanted to negotiate his own price.
He started the company in the fall of 2006 but switched to a new development team in China in early 2007. Right now, he has about 13 developers in China and another dozen employees in San Jose. To date, the company has raised $1 million in funds from Quest Venture Partners and will likely seek more funding.
The site goes live today. On it, sellers will list items for sale. The potential buyers can contact the sellers to negotiate a price in a kind of instant-messenger conversation. Wendell said that the buyers and sellers cannot type anything they want into a conversation. That’s because negotiations often deteriorate into name calling. Instead, the buyers and sellers can select from a menu of responses, such as “go higher.” Wendell says buyers can wind up happier because they can sell items more quickly and get a fair price. Read the rest of this entry »
