Southern Cross Austereo launches advertising barter e-commerce platform My Local Auction

Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) has made a new digital play with the launch of an e-commerce platform My Local Auction, aimed at connecting local buyers and sellers across Australia and maximising the network’s unsold ad inventory, Mumbrella can reveal.

The service allows vendors to put their unsold goods up for auction with a reserve price well under the recommended retail price (RRP). If the item is bought at or above the reserve SCA pockets the cash with the vendor getting the full RRP as advertising credit with its local TV and radio stations.

It will also see SCA harvest data from the auctions, allowing retailers to re-target customers who miss out on the bargains afterwards.

Clive Dickens director of digital and innovation at SCA told Mumbrella: “The clever thing is the business model behind it. The consumer gets a bargain which is anywhere between 30 and 50 per cent off the RRP.“The owner of the stock gets to trade unsold stock into an auction environment in return for credits he can use against advertising off the RRP and then we get the cash transaction and the data.”