According to Mr Pavan Sood, managing director, ITNation.com, through auction, the OEM vendors along with their channel partners can sell their PCs. Henceforth, these brands don't have to dish out a large amount of money along with the creation of different kind of logistics to organise exhibitions-cum-clearance sale to liquidate the PCs. "As one of the fastest growing industries in India, the rate of obsolence in IT is very high both in hardware and software segments. Clearing the high value stocks in the shortest time is a pain-point for the reseller. ITNation.com will play a crucial role in removing the pain-point through the clearing of the inventories by the channel community in a very effective and cost effective manner," Mr Sood said. In terms of revenue generation, ITNation is charging the sellers participating in the auction. "We are charging five per cent of the closing value of the auction from the seller. In the beginning each of the auction participants has to register by paying Rs 2,500, out ofwhich Rs 250 will be deducted as a one-time fee. The remaining Rs 2,250 is kept as deposit money to be adjusted with the auction charge. Whenever the deposit is less than the auction charge, the seller has to deposit the amount before the auction can take place," Mr Mani Jayram, head, product management, ITNation.com, told eFE. According to Mr Sood, with an aim to attract a whole bunch of IT bigwigs to participate in the auction, ITNation.com has started talks with big hardware vendors like Intel, Compaq, Samsung and IBM and the distributors like Tech Pacific. Already Ingram Micro and Nebula Technologies, two leading distributors have started participating in the auction.

The online business exchange ITNation.com, which is in its third year of operations, has two other sections - requirements and quotes and plaza- besides the third auction section. In the auction section, there are six segments - Institution, Small and medium enterprise (SME), Small Office Home Office (SOHO), Software Solution providers and traders. "The channels have a wide area of choice to liquidate its stocks. If it wants to sell a hard disk drive, it can choose the trading section to attract a large number of resellers. The section is an auction place where large number of IT buyers and sellers will come to meet their requirements," Mr Jayram said.

As far as the customer base is concerned, Mr Sood said that the site has already able to attract a large number of resellers. The number is close to 8,000. "With the auction feature being added, we hope to enroll all the major IT vendors," added Mr Sood. Till now, around Rs 18 crore has been invested and the site has been able to attract venture capital funding from Chrysalis Capital and the Carlyle Group. Further Mr Sood said that the site had a well planned revenue generation model. "Around 40 to 50 per cent of the revenue will come from the transaction model, around 20 to 30 per cent from marketing services and the rest through providing various value added services like recruitment, training and financial services to the Indian IT corporate segments. The site aims to be a total market place for the IT companies," Mr Sood said.