MBT International Inc. said today that it will bring the popular Web auction format to agricultural products and services. By early January, MBT will launch an auction Web site featuring more than $100 million worth of farming-related goods, horses, and livestock.
MBT is the parent company of AgriMall.com, a Web hosting service for agriculture product merchants, and HorseNet.com, an online horse brokering and classified ad site. MBT will use technology from both firms to create the auction site.
The site will launch with the "passive auction" format used by successful consumer auction sites such as OnSale and eBay, where bids can be placed anytime before a specified deadline. Later in the first quarter of 1999, MBT will add "live auction" capability, where the auction occurs as a real-time scheduled event. That format is used by industrial marketplace FreeMarkets Online.
The live auction "will allow buyers and sellers from around the world to transact business in a real-time auction setting on the Internet," said MBT CEO Andy McKinnon.
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