HP Signs With EBay

One of the last hardware makers to make an eBay foray, HP this week said it has inked a deal with the online auctioneer and Accenture to open the HP Store, an online storefront on the e-commerce giant's site.

For now, HP's eBay experiment focuses on its HP Factory Outlet , where people will be able to purchase refurbished PCs, servers, workstations and other hardware. An HP spokeswoman said the company has no plans to expand its eBay product offers beyond these initial products.

The spokeswoman also said the company currently sells and will continue to sell refurbished and returned equipment through company outlet stores, online at Hpshopping.com and various auction companies.

EBay executives said talks with HP started as early as 2001's Comdex show in Las Vegas, the first Comdex where eBay had a booth.

Ebay recently reorganized product groups ranging from workstations to PDAs to digital cameras into a single category, Electronics. Ebay said it expects to move $2.2 billion of electronics this year.

Solution providers said that with their business concentrated on value-added services, the array of hardware available on eBay should have little impact on them.

"Ninety-nine percent of our revenue comes from services," said Bharat Manglani, CEO of FootPath, a Waltham, Mass.-based solution provider. "We usually make clients pay [the supplier for hardware directly.

"We [could buy from eBay and package a solution, but at the end of the day we are responsible for warranties, deliverables and the complete solution," Manglani said, adding hardware costs accounted for less than 5 percent of FootPath's billings.

In May, Accenture rolled out its Connection-to-eBay service to help companies and people that sell a lot of product on eBay manage those transactions. HP is using the Accenture service.

The service offers companies help with listing products on eBay, managing inventory, and planning for warehousing and logistics needs.

ChannelAdvisor, one of a roster of companies that have sprung up to cater to eBay's "power users," wonders about Accenture's longevity in this space.

"Here is a firm that goes into enterprises and state governments and does multimillion-dollar deals," said Scot Wingo, CEO of ChannelAdvisor, a Research Triangle Park, N.C., company that facilitates eBay sales of IT products for Acer, Dell Computer, Motorola and other clients. "Now they are going into HP and doing small deals? It remains to be seen how committed [Accenture is."