Vendio, a provider of Web-based services designed to help online merchants to reach consumers and better manage transactions, today announced that it has acquired what it described as a significant controlling interest in Andale, a popular provider of listing management and research services for sellers on eBay.

Vendio would not disclose financial terms of the deal. The company did say that as part of the purchase agreement, Vendio would appoint five directors to the Andale seven-member board of directors.

"Vendio and Andale have complementary strengths," said Rodrigo Sales, CEO of Vendio, in a statement. "From economies of scale and category and geographic expansion to new services and technologies, this deal will result in a host of lucrative new opportunities for both companies and the customers they serve."

The companies report that they are working on several strategic initiatives that will produce new and expanded services for the seller community.

"We've always had great respect for one another and there's no doubt that our combined expertise and experience will deliver great new products for the entire industry." said Ravi Garikipati, CEO of Andale.

Last week, Vendio announced the availability of its Dealio 1.4 shopping toolbar. The new version of the automated search service is designed to cover multiple product categories, including apparel, home & garden, computers, toys, jewelry and others.

The Dealio toolbar is designed to help shoppers automatically find deals while they search on more sites. The new sites include Froogle, Netflix, Barnes and Noble, Home Depot and Nike.com.

The Dealio toolbar was updated earlier this year with results from Shopzilla.com. The free toolbar debuted in beta release in August 2005, and began incorporating eBay auction listings in its search results in November.

A Vendio spokesperson recently told ECommerce-Guide that Dealio has been installed nearly 750,000 times at this point.

Once known as Auction Watch, Vendio offers a range of a la carte features and plans ranging from $30 per month (no per listing fee, 1.25 percent final value fee up to $4.95 per item) up to an Annual Listing Plan (at $250 and six cents per listing). There is also a Pay-As-You Go plan (ten cents for the first 50 listings, five cents per additional listing and a one percent final value fee.

Andale was founded in 1999 and offers an array of features aimed at everyone from the smallest of eBay sellers to the biggest power sellers. Andale was the first third-party service to sign eBay's Licensing Agreement and provide a research product based on a database of over one billion completed eBay auctions, according to the company.

Currently, Andale claims a paid user base in the high ten thousands.

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