Election Section

SUNNYVALE — Getting behind a growing trend in Web commerce, Yahoo! Inc. plans to soon launch a new shopping category that will offer used and clearance merchandise at set prices. 

Items for sale in Yahoo’s new “warehouse” category will be featured in search results and on the site’s shopping pages, complementing auctions, virtual “stores” that sell new products and regionally based classified ads for goods and services. 

Sellers in the Yahoo warehouse will be able to type in numbered product codes on their books, compact discs and other discount merchandise to call up descriptions of the items. Yahoo will not charge to list items but will take a yet-to-be-disclosed commission on successful sales. 

A similar system was started in 1999 by Half.com, which was bought last year by eBay Inc. and is being incorporated into eBay’s site to satisfy the growing interest in its “buy it now” feature. Amazon.com also lets companies and individuals sell used merchandise at set prices. 

Yahoo’s warehouse, scheduled to be rolled out by the end of the month, “is an outgrowth of what consumers have started to tell us over the last six to 12 months,” said Brian Fitzgerald, a Yahoo senior producer. “Consumers absolutely want this sort of control and choice.”