Carphone Warehouse launch dedicated phone auction website

Dreams of replacing eBay for phone auctions in the UK

16 October 2006 22:11 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Carphone Warehouse has launched a dedicated mobile phone auction site, taking on auction giant eBay.

The new site; mymobileauction.com will allow customers to list their phone in a similar way to as they would on eBay, in the hope that the potential customer will only be looking for phones rather than everything else under the sun.

Carphone Warehouse has also said that it will provide checks on handset identification numbers against a stolen phones database before they go on sale.

"This adds a new and important dimension to the trust and security aspect of the new site", said Adrian Portlock, managing director of the firm that runs the CheckMEND database.

Free until 17 November 2006, it will cost £1.25 to list a handset on the site, including the database check, considerably more than the 30p listing fee on eBay.

Research commissioned by Carphone Warehouse, suggests that over a third of customers in Britain hang onto their old mobiles.

Tristia Clarke, Marketing Director for The Carphone Warehouse said: "Customers tend to change their phone every year so this offers the perfect opportunity to sell on old handsets".

Carphone Warehouse clearly hopes the move could also boost its main business by giving fashion-conscious consumers who feel the need to have the latest model another excuse to upgrade their phone.

Full tags

Phones, Mobile phones, Carphone Warehouse, shopping