“We expect that our business will continue to grow; however, our growth rate has declined over time and we expect that to continue in 2008, primarily as a result of the following:
• we face challenges in the U.S., U.K. and Germany, which are our three largest markets, as growth of listings, active users and GMV on the eBay.com platform in those countries has slowed. In January 2008, we announced our plan to implement changes to our fee structure, seller incentives and standards and feedback system, all of which may impact our Marketplaces revenue growth;
• consumer spending in our major markets, including the U.S., Germany and the U.K., is expected to be weaker in 2008; and
• we anticipate that ecommerce growth as a whole will decelerate in 2008. “
Perhaps the most interesting is the first excerpt… it appears that eBay management is making deliberate decisions to push it’s own sales down for the core markets:
“In January 2008, we announced our plan to implement changes to our fee structure, seller incentives and standards and feedback system, all of which may impact our Marketplaces revenue growth; “
reference : AP Article
I thought the management is driven to increase revenues / shareholder’s value. From this statement it appears as a direct admission that eBay management is aware that their decision to increase eBay fees plus other changes anounced on January 29th will directly contribute to decline in revenue growth.
Online marketplace eBay Inc. said Thursday it reached a settlement with MercExchange LLC over a patent lawsuit filed in September 2001.
San Jose-based eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) will purchase all three patents involved in the lawsuit with Great Falls, Va.-based MercExchange, along with related technology and inventions and a license to another search-related patent portfolio that was not asserted in the lawsuit.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
“We’re pleased to have been able to reach a settlement with MercExchange,” said Mike Jacobson, eBay general counsel. “In addition to resolving the litigation, this settlement gives us access to additional intellectual property that will help improve and further secure our marketplaces.”
In December a judge upheld an earlier verdict that Bay must pay about $30 million because its “Buy It Now” feature violates MercExchange’s patent.
source: Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal
Source: Gmarket: The Better eBay 2/28/2008
At least one company means what it says in South Korea. I mention that only because I called out Gmarket rival eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) last month for claiming that it’s gaining ground on Gmarket.
“We’re pleased about our performance in Korea, where we believe we’ve significantly narrowed the gap with our main competitor over the last three or four quarters,” eBay CFO Bob Swan noted during January’s conference call.
He pointed to the company’s 33% improvement in gross merchandise value (GMV) in South Korea during the quarter. However, Gmarket’s GMV climbed by 42% during the period. Even a mathematically mediocre kindergartner can tell you that the numbers imply a widening — not narrowing — gap
In this article, the author refers to his article from two weeks earlier ( Can We Take eBay Seriously ) :
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/01/28/can-ebay-be-taken-seriously.aspx
Here is a good interview from multi channel seller on eBay vs. Amazon He summarizes the pros and cons selling on both marketplaces.
A leading anti-piracy body has accused eBay over counterfeit software, claiming in a new report that “at least 90 percent of all software available on eBay is illegal.”
The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is an association for software companies whose anti-piracy division acts rather like the UK’s Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) in its efforts to combat software piracy in the workplace. Members include AOL, Adobe, IBM, Intel, Novell, Quark, and Sun, among many others.
During 2007, the SIIA received 427 reports of alleged corporate end-user piracy, and in 17 percent of the cases judged there was sufficient evidence to pursue charges.
By Tom Jowitt, Techworld - full article
