Ricardo (Internet auction house)
| Ricardo AG
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1998 |
| Seat | Zug, Switzerland |
| management | Francesco Vass (Ricardo AG) |
| Number of employees | 300, 140 of them in Switzerland |
| Branch | eCommerce |
| Website | www.ricardo.ch |
Ricardo is the name of several Internet auction houses that have their origins in the former ricardo.de AG in Hamburg . The Ricardo AG was founded in November 1999 and is based in train . The auto platform autoricardo.ch is part of the Ricardo Group. In 2015 the Swiss media group Tamedia took over Ricardo AG. In 2020 Tamedia will have a new corporate structure and a new name with TX Group.
ricardo.ch
In November 1999 auktion24.ch was founded as an independent Swiss company by the brothers Stephan and Michael Widmer under the name auktion24.ch in Baar (ZG). Until the takeover by the German internet auction house ricardo.de AG in 2000, the auctions were free for the providers. Due to the takeover, auktion24.ch was renamed ricardo.ch. With the takeover of ricardo.de by Naspers , ricardo.ch also became part of the South African group.
The ricardo.ch website is the market leader in Switzerland. In 2018, the 3.7 million members traded over 5 million articles on the platform. The competitor eBay achieves around a fifth of ricardo.ch's sales in Switzerland.
On February 10, 2015, the takeover of the ricardo group by the Swiss media group Tamedia was announced. The Swiss Competition Commission examined this takeover in detail, as it suspected a possible dominant position in the field of job advertisements and market dominance in vehicle advertisements from Tamedia together with competitor Ringier . The acquisition was approved on August 25, 2015. As part of the reorganization of Ricardo by Tamedia, a large part of the management left the company.
As of September 4, 2018, the auctions can be suspended again free of charge. A commission fee of 9% (up to a maximum of CHF 190.-) is only due in the event of a successful sale . In addition, other payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay will soon be integrated for buyers .
Autoricardo.ch
In addition to the most widely used platform ricardo.ch, the company also owns the auto platform autoricardo.ch. The online vehicle market enables the sale and purchase of used cars, new vehicles, motorcycles, boats and spare parts. The integration of car4you.ch into the Ricardo Group and the associated close cooperation between autoricardo.ch and car4you.ch resulted in a second strong vehicle platform in Switzerland. On February 1, 2017, car4you.ch was switched off and integrated into autoricardo.ch. The new car platform Car For You emerged from the joint venture between AXA Winterthur and Tamedia, which was concluded in January 2018. In order to focus on the more modern Car For You platform in the future, the autoricardo.ch platform was deactivated in January 2020.
ricardo.de and ricardo24.de
Ricardo.de was founded on July 21, 1998 by Stefan Glänzer, Christoph Linkwitz and Stefan Wiskemann. Exactly 365 days later, the company was listed on the Neuer Markt under the securities identification number 702070 and in spring 2000 reached a market capitalization of 1.8 billion euros. In November 2000 the British QXLricardo plc acquired around 90% of the share capital in ricardo.de AG. Since then ricardo.de has belonged to the pan-European QXLricardo group.
Unlike eBay , ricardo.de did not concentrate solely on the operation of a marketplace from the outset , but began in 1998 initially with large-scale proprietary trading in branded products that were sold at the highest bid. Here ricardo.de distinguished itself at the start on August 25, 1999 with live moderated auctions, a mixture of entertainment , sponsoring and e-commerce .
The introduction of automated business-to-consumer auction channels at the end of 1998 brought in proprietary trading sales, but at the same time resulted in high economic losses, especially since logistics could not keep up with the growth.
Therefore, from the spring of 2001 ricardo.de concentrated solely on the operation of the marketplace division, which had already started in the spring of 1999 under the name "ricardo private", but had only been positioned as the third of a total of three sales formats. However, ricardo.de could not successfully maintain its marketplace in the long term against the already very strong market position of eBay in Germany. In November 2003 the online auction marketplace was finally closed and the domain www.ricardo.de, which had been used up until then, was rented out for a limited period. Later ricardo.de operated a price comparison for branded products on the website www.ricardo24.de, in addition to the auction platform in Switzerland, which continues to operate through the wholly-owned subsidiary Ricardo AG. With the success of the local business, ricardo.de has meanwhile also made the leap into the operating profit zone.
In 2008 the South African media group Naspers took over ricardo.de AG including its subsidiaries through Myriad International Holdings and other intermediate companies. This corporate structure existed at least until 2011. The domain www.ricardo24.de was taken over by ricardo.ch.
ricardo.gr
In 2008 the company entered the Greek market, which was organized in small internet auction houses. Unlike the latter, ricardo was not also active as a seller and was able to achieve market leadership within a year.
ricardo.at
Ricardo entered the Austrian market as Ricardo.at in September 2008 with the takeover of OneTwoSold. As of December 30, 2010, no new auctions could be started. The last ongoing auctions ended on January 10, 2011.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Entry of "Ricardo AG" in the commercial register of the Canton of Zurich. Accessed January 1, 2020 .
- ↑ Francesco Vass takes over the management of ricardo.ch. In: tamedia.ch. November 23, 2017. Retrieved April 26, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Tamedia wins the race for Ricardo . Neue Zürcher Zeitung from February 10, 2015.
- ↑ tamedia.ch
- ↑ moneyhouse commercial register and business information , as of June 24, 2013.
- ↑ Takeover of millions: Ricardo.de buys Auction24.ch . Network week of March 27, 2000
- ↑ communication.ricardo.ch
- ↑ 20 minutes (Ed.): Will Ebay soon be history in Switzerland? April 26, 2010 ( HTML [accessed August 20, 2013]).
- ↑ Weko examines classified ads . Neue Zürcher Zeitung from June 9, 2015.
- ↑ WEKO approves the takeover of Ricardo by Tamedia and of JobScout24 by JobCloud , media release of the Swiss Competition Commission, August 25, 2015
- ↑ Exodus at Ricardo - management leaves the company almost completely , carpathia.ch on September 16, 2015, accessed on October 30, 2015.
- ↑ Media release: ricardo.ch now without listing fees and with a simplified sales process In: help.ricardo.ch, September 4, 2018, accessed on September 6, 2018.
- ↑ Car4you becomes Autoricardo - information | autoricado.ch. Retrieved March 21, 2017 .
- ↑ Newsroom - Tamedia. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .
- ↑ autoricardo.ch - Buy used cars, used cars in Switzerland. Retrieved February 11, 2020 .
- ↑ Interim financial statements as of December 31, 2010 of ricardo.de AG (PDF)
- ↑ Imprint ricardo24.de , accessed on May 12, 2014.
- ^ Daniel AJ Sokolov: Auction platform Ricardo.at closes operations. In: heise.de. heise online, December 31, 2010, accessed on April 12, 2017 .