Welcome to the brand new eBay.ca – in French!

There’s now a Français link at the top of every eBay.ca page. That’s right, eBay Canada is now available in French! French-speaking Canadians have made a wonderful contribution to the eBay Canada community, and we’re pleased to be able to offer a site that meets their needs directly.

Currently eBay Canada has more than 775,000 registered eBay users in Quebec, and we hope that being able to navigate the site in French will draw even more francophone Canadians to www.ebay.ca. More buyers and sellers is good news for all of us, and we know eBayers will welcome all our new users with their usual warmth and good humour.

Sellers on eBay.ca in French may now list items in French, English, or bilingually, and may add a free subtitle in a second language of their choice. Buyers can search in English, French or both languages at once. The French site will be immediately populated with all listings available to Canada and from eBay sites in the U.S, U.K., Australia, France, Belgium and English Canada.

If you’d like to start receiving your communications from eBay in French, go to “My eBay” and select “Preferences”. Once you are on the “Preferences” page, click on the “Edit” link to expand the “Notification Preferences” tab. Then simply select French as your language preference. You can also bookmark the French site, or select it as your Internet home page.

To celebrate the launch of our new site, eBay made its first official play in French Canada with Montreal’s star goaltender Cristobal Huet, who posted a ceremonial first listing today on the new French site. Up for auction is a “meet and greet” with the young hockey star, including airfare and accommodation in Montreal, tickets for two to a Montreal vs. Toronto game, and signed memorabilia.

I’m very pleased to say that eBay will match the final selling price of the auction, with all proceeds going to the Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal. The auction is available at www.ebay.ca/huet, and closes on November 2, 2006. Bid now, and help us raise money for the children of Sainte-Justine Hospital.

So please join us in celebrating the launch of eBay.ca in French!

Jordan Banks
Managing Director
eBay Canada