Online auctioneer eBay will plug a recently purchased China site into its global network on Friday, creating new opportunities for a nascent but fast-growing operation, its chief executive said.
US-based eBay, which has based its European customer support centre in Dublin, bought homegrown internet player EachNet in two tranches for $180 million (€148 million) over the past two years, and now owns the company outright.
Since sealing the deal a year ago, EachNet has gradually been integrated into eBay's worldwide system - a process that will be complete with the Friday launch of a mirror EachNet site (www.ebay.com.cn), said EachNet chairman Mr Shao Yibo in an interview at the company's Shanghai headquarters.
"There are a lot of worldwide features [on eBay] that are not in China that would be useful locally," said Mr Shao, who, at 31, is a throwback to the internet bubble wunderkinds of the 1990s. Ebay Eachnet, as the unit is now known, had 6.9 million users who traded $63 million in goods in the second quarter of this year, up 25 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively, from the first quarter. New listings for the quarter grew 38 per cent to 4.2 million.
Mr Shao said those growth rates were generally in line with recent increases, but declined to give any projections.
EachNet controls an estimated 60-70 per cent of China's online auction market, worth an estimated 1.92 billion yuan (€1.9 million) last year.
It is the only one of the country's three best-known players to charge fees.
Two newer sites, a joint venture between Yahoo and Chinese online media firm Sina, and taobao.com, operated by homegrown Alibaba.com, both offer services free of charge as they seek to build their businesses.
Mr Shao said eBay EachNet charges sellers a fee for listing, a sales commission and an optional fee for making listings stand out from others. Buyers pay no fees.
He said payments for goods - often considered a stumbling block in a nation where credit cards and checks are relatively rare - was receding as an issue as more people had credit cards and banks started allowing online money transfers.
The rise of express delivery and alternatives to China's post office have also boosted the medium. "Five years ago when we started, we encouraged local trading, and estimated 95 per cent of [actual goods exchanges] were done in person," he said.
"Today, over 70 per cent of transactions happen between users in different cities. Of the remaining 30 per cent, many don't meet in person. The spy movie (scenarios) are very few and far between now. They still exist, but users are very resourceful."
Earlier this year eBay opened its European customer support centre in Ireland. It has also choosen Dublin as the location for its online payments subsidary PayPal.
From this month Irish customers have been able to use Paypal as an alternative to credit cards for online payments. - (Reuters)
