Dialog aims for ecommerce market

NEWS Dialog, the online information services provider, has launched an ecommerce project called Planet Retail. Dialog has consolidated its position as the dominant player in corporate information, with the acquisition late last year of Knight Ridder. Now it is hoping to use the same information indexing technology to break in to the ecommerce market. The service will be delivered in two phases. The first phase, to be delivered before the end of the year, will involve the setting up of a pricing aggregation service, so that users can compare prices offered by different suppliers. Banner advertising will pay for the service. The second stage will allow users to select items put them in a shopping basket and pay for them without leaving the Planet Retail site. Dialog recognises the limitations of ecommerce and has limited its target accordingly, to the business equipment supply chain. Andre Brown, Dialog director of strategic alliances and special projects, said: "On the consumer side, ecommerce isn't taking off yet and the UK is at least two years behind the US. That is why we are focusing on the business to business sector. Once phase two is reached it is hoped that the main revenue stream will be in acting as an aggregator for online transactions in business equipment procurement." Although only a few of the 100 vendors signed up on the service so far are IT vendors, Brown insists that it would fit Dialog's business model to support vendors of high-end server equipment. "Basically, anything that can be sold out of a catalogue can be sold through Planet Retail," he said. "We draw the line at Vaxes and AS400s."