Thanks to 27-year-old Curt Ehrhart, his partners, and their brain-child, BidAlaska.com, that second price is no longer a concern for Alaskans.

Ehrhart, a native of Anchorage, said he got the idea for an Alaska-focused on-line auction when he and some friends tried to buy cars from auction house eBay Inc. They discovered that, for large items, the price of shipping almost always deterred a sale.

"If you bought a car, you had to figure out how to get it here," Ehrhart said. "Our idea was, if you want to buy a car here, you can pretty much just go there and pick it up."

From its inception in May 2002, to its official launch this month, BidAlaska.com has been a Site for sore eyes to potential bidders. More than 30 people had, as of press date, signed-up to sign-in, in the anticipation of doing some on-line wheeling and dealing with their fellow Alaskans.

Ehrhart, who graduated from UAA with a double major in Business Administration and Computer Systems Information, said the site is geared towards accommodating sellers as well as buyers.

"If someone in Florida wants to buy native art, then he can," Ehrhart said. "But, if he wants to sell something up here, then he's going to have to pay the shipping and handling."

With about 70 categories from which to chose, there are plenty of items for bargain hunters, collectors and investors alike. Auction space can go towards auctioning space, since 11 categories are dedicated to the sale of Alaska real estate; and anything with an engine that beeps, whirs or purrs can be sold in one of eight "Alaska Motors" categories.

And, there's a calling in the state for such a Website, said Kenrick Mock, an assistant professor of computer science at UAA. While he said the most profitable geographic area will probably surround Anchorage, where people can do the transactions on a person-to-person basis; he noted that the Site could be beneficial to the less accessible regions of the state, as well.

"Personally, I've thought that would be a nice idea, since the only inter-state trade is through the classifieds," Mock said. "I'll probably be a customer, myself."

Patrick O'Leary, one of Mock's colleagues at the UAA school of computer science, however, described the concept as "fundamentally backward."

"A company goes on-line to increase its market share," he said. "When you're on the Net, you have access to anything, so the places you're going to want to go shopping are not just around the corner."

The Website has evolved in terms of its purpose, said Jennifer Geigen, one of the BidAlaska partners and Ehrhart's fianc. BidAlaska is also working with area not-for-profit organizations to house on-line auctions and fund-raisers.

"They (Ehrhart and his partner, Morgan Huet)have a lot of plans," Geigen said. "I see more and more what they're planning and I say 'wow.'"

She added that sellers who don't have the ability to design their own sales page needn't worry. Technical support and graphic assistance are also in the works. BidAlaska will help sellers with, among other things, digital photography and uploading digital images, as it is needed.

Geigen, who helped with the graphic design and layout, said Ehrhart built the Website from the ground up.

"He's had a fire in him to get this done," she said. "Curt is on the go for getting these jobs done. When I see what he's put together, I'm pretty impressed."

The Site is free to join, Ehrhart said; and he and his fellow bid-Alaskans don't plan on charging anything in the near future.

"We imagine there are going to be some bugs in the works, so we won't charge you anything to sell your items," Ehrhart said. "If we make enough money to cover our costs, we'll feel like we've accomplished something."

Ehrhart said starting and supporting the page cost about $1,600 for the first year. That price, he noted, was kept to a minimum by piecing together the actual serving computer's parts.

"Right now, we have a really old computer," he said, "you wouldn't even want to run Microsoft Word on it."

Geigen said she hasn't been involved in the Site from its inception, but she has helped make it aesthetically pleasing.

"People want to be drawn in," she said. "When they're plugging around on the Internet, they want to see something that looks cool."

With Ehrhart at the helm and Geigen offering "creative critique, I guess," the development and launching of the Site have gone smoothly, Geigen said. The only problem, she noted, was dueling opinions on which type of computer to use.

"We're a two-religion household," she said. "Torn between Apples and PC's."