February 17, 2000 Web posted at: 8:36 a.m. EST (1336 GMT) by Juan Carlos PŽrez

From...

MIAMI (IDG) -- MercadoLibre, which runs online auction sites for Latin Americans modeled in part after eBay, has launched a site for U.S. Hispanics, said Marcos Galperin, the company's CEO, during a keynote address Tuesday afternoon at Jupiter Communications's Latin America Internet Commerce Forum.

"The U.S. Hispanic market is very important for us," Galperin said, adding that, because a third of the 35 million U.S. Hispanics have access to the Internet, his company expects a higher level of trading at its U.S. site than at its Latin American sites.

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Conversely, the Latin American country with the most Internet users is Brazil, which has 5.8 million, according to Jupiter.

MercadoLibre, which was founded in August 1999, operates auction sites for five Latin American countries: Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil and MŽxico. It plans to add other country-specific sites in the region this year.

"The U.S. site is significantly different from our Latin American sites," he said.

The U.S. site is betting its success on providing products, such as jewelry, clothes or candy, from Latin America that are hard to find in the U.S. but that Hispanics are interested in acquiring. On the other hand, its consumer-to-consumer trading in Latin America is overwhelmingly local, with most of the trading occurring among users who live in the same city, he said.

The company features both consumer-to-consumer trade capabilities and business-to-consumer selling. Its average item price in its Latin American countries is about $300, because most of the wares traded are pricier electronics and computing products, he said. This is not the case with U.S. auction sites, such as eBay, whose average item price is in the $40 range, he added.

MercadoLibre also features a shopping mall section in its auction sites for business-to-consumer selling where vendors sell new products to consumers, Galperin said.

The company has about 110 employees. It closed a $7.6 million round of financing in Sept. 1999 that included Chase Capital Partners and Flatiron Partners.

Juan Carlos PŽrez is Latin America news editor for the IDG News Service in Miami.