Bellevue-based InfoSpace is the mystery company behind a new e-commerce website called Haggle that lets people bid on computers, electronics, game consoles and other items, TechFlash has learned. It's an online auction site with a gimmick: people pre-purchase bid packs — ranging from 20 to 600 — and use them to place bids on individual items.

InfoSpace has actually owned the Haggle domain name since the dot-com era, but just relaunched it three weeks ago as an active website.

The move into online shopping is an interesting turn of events for InfoSpace, which spent the past several years shedding businesses in order to concentrate on internet search.

Here's how Haggle works: people pre-purchase "bids" which they use to compete in the auctions. The cost is 55 cents to 75 cents per bid, depending on the size of the pack. You can use each bid just once.

The auction items have a low initial price. Each time someone clicks to bid on an item, it adds 10 cents to the final price and more time to the auction clock. The winner is determined when the clock runs out. Here's an example of an auction for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for Xbox 360. The game went for $2.90, which according to Haggle is a 95 percent savings off the $59.99 retail price.

"It's a great way to get deals on items, especially right before Christmas," said InfoSpace spokeswoman Stacy Ybarra.

Ybarra said the company is actively developing other products under CEO Will Lansing, who joined the company earlier this year.

"We're increasing the speed at which we're launching new and different products to try and grow our overall business," Ybarra said. She said there are "other sites in the works," but declined to name them.

Ybarra also noted that InfoSpace is sitting on "$214 million in cash and we want to use that for acquisitions," particularly in the consumer internet space.

Lansing previously launched Shop NBC.TV and headed up Macy's mail order business and website, according to his bio. That e-commerce background may explain the interest in Haggle.

It's an interesting time to be getting into online auctions, given that there's been a consumer shift away from that type of marketplace. Web giant eBay, which popularized the online auction model, has been moving steadily into fixed-price retail sales.

InfoSpace's move is also noteworthy given that it's spent the last several years shedding business units — including payments, directories and mobile — to focus on its internet search properties.

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