November 2000

Lost and found goods will be consolidated, catalogued and sold through online auctions under a pioneering joint venture announced by Web auction specialist eBay.co.uk and e-fulfilment company i-force. They maintain that prices could reach five times the value they have achieved with traditional methods. Already they say they have signed up 15 police forces across England and Wales.

Under UK law, organisations holding unclaimed lost and found goods are required to sell them after a year, but sales have historically been local in character, and goods have not realised very high values. Under this new scheme, i-Force will coordinate collection and delivery, digital cataloguing, stock management and warehousing of the goods. These will then be placed for auction by eBay.co.uk and will be available to all UK-registered eBay members. Ebay's move into this market follows its acquisition of the public auction functions of Norwich Union's BlueCycle.com site.