CARLA WILSON
Times Colonist
Saanich high-tech company Terapeak has entered into a partnership with Yahoo! Japan to offer analyses of online auction data to help sellers improve their results.
"Our goal is to become the international merchant analytics platform for research and sales support. Yahoo was a really strategic move for us," Terapeak president Colin How said Thursday after a signing ceremony at the Vancouver Island Technology Park.
"We have a pipeline of international partners that we are currently in discussions with and our intention is to launch several international partnerships over the next 24 months."
The partnership with Yahoo! Japan, effective immediately, takes Terapeak to a new level in the international stage, How said. Yahoo's auction site is larger in Japan than either eBay or Amazon, Terapeak said.
This web-based service is a tool for sellers. It receives and crunches millions of lines of data daily to offer sellers information and guidance on how to improve their sales results.
"We help merchants sell faster, sell smarter, sell better," How said. "They are making real-time decisions on their pricing, where their demand is, volume, the way that their listings are performing."
In March, for example, Yahoo! Japan had 21.7 million items listed on its auction platform. Costs to use Terapeak can range from about $10 to hundreds of dollars per month, depending on the service wanted by sellers, How said.
Brothers and UVic students Andrew and Anthony Sukow founded Terapeak, then called Advanced E-commerce Research Systems, in 2004, when they began buying and selling on online auction giant eBay from the basement of their family home. They developed ways to track trends in sales data, leading the company to link up with eBay.
Today, Terapeak does business through eBay's global platform, which has grown to include Germany, the U.K., Australia, France and Spain, How said.
The new partnership adds seven new jobs for a team dedicated to Yahoo! Japan and How expects that number could rise by another 40 or so. Terapeak already has 45 employees and is moving to a new larger location of 9,600 square feet on Quadra Street in a couple of months.
Capital investment and operating costs arising from this partnership over the next couple of years "will easily reach seven figures," How said.
Koichi Imamura, senior vice-president for Yahoo! Japan's e-commerce planning division, said the partnership agreement "went very smoothly with the hard work of the Terapeak professionals."
"This is just the beginning and we can finally start our new business ventures. There are so many things we have ahead of us."
Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard said Terapeak's agreement will create jobs, help the economy, and bring in taxes. "If you are growing, if you are profitable, our community is that much better off."