Simon Smith

Hi everyone,

I would like to take some time to update you on the progress of the eBay Australia Community.

With more than three million members in Australia - or over one in five of the adult population, and around four million unique visitors coming to the site every month*, eBay has evolved into a marketplace where Australians can buy and sell practically anything. On eBay in Australia, a car is sold every 12 minutes, a laptop is sold every 11 minutes, a baby item is sold every 38 seconds and a toy is sold every 21 seconds.

eBay.com.au is committed to ensuring there is a healthy balance of buyers and sellers in the eBay marketplace. That is why decisions have been made regarding pricing and the exposure of Store Inventory Format listings, as announced earlier today. I am very confident that the decisions made will have a positive impact on the eBay Australia Community as a whole.

To ensure buying on eBay remains fun and easy for Australians which will ultimately improve business for sellers, eBay invests in advertising, public relations, promotions and site enhancements.

What has eBay done to attract buyers?
eBay is one of the largest online advertisers in Australia. eBay advertises on some of the largest websites including NineMSN, Google, Hotmail and Yahoo. Our advertising drives a large volume of potential buyers to the site on a daily basis.

This year eBay launched an advertising campaign in some of Australia’s most popular magazines and newspapers. I hope you have seen these ads which feature a range of Australians showing off a wide variety of items they have purchased on eBay.

Another effective way to tell the eBay story is in the media and we’ve had great success in doing this. So far this year, our media team has generated almost 1500 positive stories in newspapers, magazines, radio and television across Australia.

eBay also regularly invests in buyer promotions including offering PayPal coupons to encourage further spending on eBay.

Improvements to the eBay site
On the site, eBay has introduced a host of improvements to make listing even easier, such as the new Sell Your Item form and for larger sellers the new Turbo Lister. For Store sellers, eBay has expanded the number of Store categories from 20 to 300 with the option of adding sub-categories.

eBay is now becoming a top choice for buying or selling a car with over one million unique visitors to the Motors site in June*. To improve confidence when buying a car on eBay Motors, eBay has recently introduced Vehicle Purchase Protection which may provide coverage of up to $20,000 in the unlikely event something goes wrong.

eBay will always support our sellers with a range of initiatives to ensure their ongoing success selling on Australia’s leading online marketplace. eBay continually evaluates the site and makes changes to grow the eBay community.

We value your feedback and suggestions and have started a chat thread on the Round Table where you can ask questions or provide feedback about today’s announcement.

More information about the price changes can be found on the Announcement Board.

* Nielsen//NetRatings Netview