An auspicious e-mergence for the online shopper?
This blog is a follow-up to the topics discussed in an earlier “iCredit” blog.
eBay Inc. and Yahoo Japan Corp., the online auction site that dominates the Japanese market, are now a team. While earlier attempts by eBay to compete with the Yahoo site failed miserably, this happy union appears a fortunate compromise for both companies and their consumers. Japanese products are increasingly popular in the West, from comic books to collector items. Kismet, it would seem, to combine two of the most powerful online auction sites for the two countries.
And that’s not all eBay’s been up to. Skype, the expensive 2.6 billion dollar 2005 acquisition of eBay will no longer lay semi-dormant. CEO of eBAy Meg Whitman has promised an influx of investment into the Skype infrastructure which, despite complaints, promises to increase in membership dramatically; Skype will encompass over 355 million users when it adds 110 million new users via an agreement with MySpace.
One reason the news is so exciting is the potential online payment plans that may soon be available through eBay’s Skype. The idea to send online bills to consumers in the form of an addition to the phone bill in not new. A company called eCharge marketed the idea in the 1990s. But it never took off quite like expectations predicted, rather like (and at the time of) eBay’s purchase of Skype.
Yet what eBay may soon be able to produce is an Internet auction/social networking platform that collapses geography and eases financial worries for both vendor and consumer. Already there has been talk of Skype as a way to sell digital content. It appears to have the tools, the money, and the technology. Has eBay determined this is the time?