Thakral Corporation and theBigB2B.com announced a consumer electronics e-Commerce venture with transaction
volume for the first year estimated at US$500M.
By Ariel Tam, ZDNetAsia
HONG KONG, 3 May 2000 - Consumer electronics distributor, Thakral Corporation Ltd. and US-based company, theBigB2B.com
Inc., today announced the formation of a joint venture, BigElectronics.com, which will create the world’s largest
online B2B consumer electronics marketplace.
BigElectronics.com, scheduled for launch by the third quarter of this year, will facilitate trading of consumer
electronics, mobile communications equipment and computer products. Under the joint venture, Thakral will transact
its existing consumer electronics business online using BigElectronics.com.
BigElectronics.com expects its transaction volume over its first 12 months of operations to be US$500 million,
a figure significantly higher than most online B2B marketplaces for consumer electronics.
Thakral will be encouraging its existing customers and suppliers to source products online, and BigElectronics.com
will launch a marketing program timed to its third quarter launch.
To cater to suppliers and buyers’ preferences and business requirements, BigElectronics.com will offer 3 transaction formats:
- multi-vendor catalog, to aggregate product information from multiple vendors into a single site
- auction/reverse auction, to allow multiple parties to bid on an offer to sell or a request to buy
- e-Xchange, to facilitate multi-lateral bids and matches offers from sellers and bids from buyers
“Through this joint venture, we are not only making our own business more cost
effective to run by streamlining processes; we are also providing our partners with the ability to purchase online,
auction off excess stock and extend their reach to new suppliers and buyers worldwide,” Bethal Thakral, managing director
of Thakral Corporation Ltd, said.
Running on Business Operations Service Systems (BOSS-TSP TM) e-commerce technology developed by theBigB2B.com,
BigElectronics.com will cater to the specific trading needs of buyers and sellers of consumer electronics, mobile
communications and computer products.
It will provide both open and closed market spaces, as well as multi-lingual
web pages.
BigElectronics is the first of several vertical B2B e-marketplaces theBigB2B.com is developing.
theBigB2B.com
theBigB2B.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of Global e-Companies, Inc. Santa Ana, California, has technology
and business development centers in California and Hong Kong.
Thakral Corporation Ltd
Listed on the Singapore Exchange, Thakral Corporation Ltd is a distributor of consumer electronics in China and
Hong Kong. It has a turnover in excess of S$900 million, with business activities encompassing distribution, manufacturing
and entertainment software.
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