Technology: ec-Content Service Provides Content For Online Catalogs
A maturing Internet marketplace has business people trying to stake out some choice territory , the middle ground between online buyers and sellers.
Executives at San Diego-based Trade Service Corp. are claiming a patch of turf with a spinoff called ec-Content, Inc.
They hope it’s a good spot. Ec-Content’s project of gathering and improving data for online catalogs could bring both companies’ revenues to more than $100 million a year by 2003, said company executives Tony Dubreville and Tod Moore.
Trade Service, ec-Content’s 70-year-old parent, makes roughly $45 million a year right now, said Dubreville, the chairman and CEO of both companies. He declined to give current revenues for ec-Content.
Trade Service officially launched ec-Content in May. It serves 16 Internet marketplaces and should grow to 20 by year’s end, said Moore, ec-Content’s president.
Both companies compile offerings from manufacturers in various industries , office products, auto parts and building materials ,then offer it to customers for a fee.
Trade Service provides the information to entities up and down supply chains, from manufacturers to contractors to end users. Ec-Content licenses the material to digital marketplaces and works to bring new suppliers into those marketplaces.
Database Is Core Of Product
Trade Service’s database forms the core of ec-Content’s library.
The company compiles catalog data on an estimated 5.2 million items from 40,000 suppliers, standardizes it, cleans it up and expands descriptions. It adapts the content so search engines can plow through it and pick out material by price and other attributes.
One such engine is made by Frictionless Commerce of Cambridge, Mass., which entered a partnership with ec-Content in September. Other computer solution providers have formed similar partnerships with ec-Content.
Ec-Content doesn’t make software, but its data loads the E-commerce software applications made by companies such as Ariba, Inc. of Mountain View and RightWorks Corp. of San Jose.
The San Diego company is also selling its content directly to E-commerce companies like AltaVista, Buzzsaw.com, BuildPoint, Cephren, Planet HVAC, SmartContractor, SourceTrack and TradePower. American Express will start an online marketplace using ec-Content material, the executives said.
Product information is often the “Achilles heel” for the would-be online merchant, said Moore, adding that the business community has come to this realization in the last 18 months.
E-commerce companies would often buy applications, then be at a loss when it came to putting good-quality data in them, he said.
Outsourcing
Part of ec-Content’s job is updating information on product prices and availability. It’s a big task, company officials note , one that can take months of work. Their solution, they say, is to outsource the work to them.
Trade Service and ec-Content have about 350 employees in San Diego and more than 500 worldwide, Dubreville said, adding that the company hopes to add 200 employees here during the next 12 months.
Getting deeper into E-commerce is just one of the ways the company is remaking itself.
Trade Service changed hands in late 1999 when its owners, the Simpson Family Trust, sold a majority stake to Boston Ventures. The family trust retains a minority stake. Dubreville has a minority stake as well. Terms of the sales were not disclosed.
Boston Ventures provided significant capital to get ec-Content going, said Dubreville.
Trade Service was founded in the Los Angeles area and has been in San Diego about 20 years.
