"Every printer has got excess stock that they need to get rid of whether that is old kit or left over paper and consumables," said founder David Knowles. "Firms are loathe to throw anything away that cost money, but don't realise it costs to store."

He added that if an item that has been offered for sale isn't bought that it can then be considered as worthless and disposed of.

Knowles is hoping to build a community of interest around Printlots, which goes live on 2 May, with finance, service and relocation specialists also offering their services on the site. He also believes the site will be of interest to dealers, distributors and manufacturers looking to get rid of excess stock as well as print firms.

Placing an ad costs between 2-100 on a sliding scale based on the value of the item from 0.01 up to 5,000+ with a final commission also based on the items value starting at 5% for items up to 50 and falling to 1% for items over ,5000.

Built along similar lines to online trading site eBay transactions will be handled via a service such as PayPal. Users integrity can be checked using a history and comments function.

Knowles said that unlike eBay Printlots was targeted at the UK print industry.

"eBay is massive, but it hasn't got the focus and most of the printing products on it are in the US," he said. "You're talking about items that take serious effort to import."

Printlots is Knowles' second online print venture. In 2000 he was part of the team behind PrintRepublic, which offered a similar model for trading in equipment, but which he said was ahead of its time.

"PrintRepublic almost worked and I've learnt from that," he said. "Back then five and a half years ago we all knew it would be the future, but in 2000 only 2% of printers regularly used the internet, now it's 84%." 


Printlots

What is it? Trading website for the disposal of excess equipment and consumables.

How much does it cost? 2-100 insertion fee based on value of the goods plus a commission ranging from 1% to 5% based on the value of the goods sold.

Who is behind it? David Knowles, former managing director of secondhand digital press specialist The Digital People and one of the team behind PrintRepublic.

Visit: www.printlots.com