SASKTEL CLICKS A BID ONLINE
By Adnews Staff
SaskTel of Regina has entered the growing world of Bargoon.com, Bid.Com and eBay with the launch of a new Canadian online auction service called clickabid.
Clickabid.com started the bidding on June 29 when it made its debut to consumers and businesses worldwide. Features of the site include: an automatic currency converter, an autobid function and a personalized function that tracks a buyers or sellers auctions. According to SaskTel, the telecommunications company established clickabid.com as a virtual business to expand its Internet diversification efforts. "Online auctions are part of a new and emerging market that's transforming the traditional buying and selling experience," said Kelvin Shepherd, SaskTel senior vice president and chief technology officer.
Clickabid joins the fastest growing segment of the e-commerce industry. According to Forrester Research sale volumes reached $1.4 billion US in 1998 and estimates that number will grow to $19 billion US in 2003. Clickabid joins an increasingly expanding market. eBay entered the online auction game in September 1995, Bid.Com's auction site was launched in November 1998 in partnership with Rogers Media, a division of Rogers Communications Inc. and Bargoon.com started trading across Canada in February of this year.
The challenge Clickabid faced was to promote itself in a way that differed from "typical" online and auction advertising. Creative for the clickabid campaign was created by Brown Communications of Regina. SaskTel decided its primary target audience was Canadian Internet users in the 25-54 age group. Its secondary target audience was Canadian retailers and wholesalers who sell items in bulk, antique dealers, sports memorabilia, coin and collectible stores.
The first phase of SaskTel's national advertising campaign was a direct mail piece sent to businesses across Canada. The piece was targeted towards businesses and retailers with an Internet connection to drive them to the site and have them be among the first visitors to clickabid. From that list, SaskTel then did a second direct mail piece using a slightly more creative approach. A large shrink-wrapped box with a foam stress mouse attached to the information piece was sent to 500 names from the original list.
Following the launch of the site, Clickabid began a multi-media campaign including television, newspapers, magazines and Internet banner advertising scheduled to run throughout July and August. The goal of the campaign was to introduce and encourage users to continue using the service. Two 15 second spots and one 30 second spot are scheduled to run for 13 weeks on specific interest shows such as The Antique Road Show and Dave Chalk's Computer Show.
Print advertisements are running in Sympatico NetLife and Maclean's magazines as well as trade magazines such as The Computer Paper, Antique Showcase and Collectibles Canada. Ads will also be running in the classified section of daily newspapers nationwide.
Internet advertising using banner ads are running on the canoe.ca, yahoo.ca, sympatico.ca, Altavista Shopping Zone, the Doubleclick network and canada.com Web sites.
To use the site, users register at <http://www.clickabid.com> and receive an identification number and password. Sellers provide a major credit card to be used for payment fees which include a $1.00 charge for every item posted on the site and a 2.5 % commission fee for each item sold. Once buyers are registered, they can browse the site and bid on any item posted. The company claims the site is inexpensive, safe and easy-to-use allowing consumers to perform live auctions over the Internet.
According to Shephard, "With Clickabid.com, I am proud that we (SaskTel) continue to be leaders in this evolving industry."