It is perhaps the most powerful eCommerce platform in the world. eBay is perhaps nothing short of a global phenomenon. Founded in 1995 by French born Pierre Omidyar, the online auction site today is one of the most successful ecommerce websites with about USD 9 billion in revenues and over 2.5 million active users. It also owns the online payment site, PayPal. In India, it acquired the online shopping mall, bazee.com for about Rs 230 crore.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Lorrie Norrington, President, eBay Marketplaces spoke about business at eBay and the road ahead for the global online auctioneer.
Q: Where does India feature in your scheme of things?
A: eBay India is having its 5th anniversary this year. We believe that India is a huge opportunity. We see over 12,800 Indians making a living on eBay today. We are in over 3,000 cities and we have over 2.5 million active users.
So we believe that we are just getting started in the India market. Both domestically as well as in exports, we have seen many – I have just met with a group of sellers this morning over half their business is growing because they are shipping outside of India as well. So, a vibrant domestic market and a great opportunity for entrepreneurial sellers.
Q: You have acquired Bazee – the original site here six years ago – but the brand Bazee seems to have a greater recall. Why is that?
A: I think everybody within their own country loves the entrepreneurial spirit. Bazee is very affectionate. I think people recall Bazee with a lot of affection. But we are very affectionate about eBay as well and wanted to keep both names alive.
But eBay we believe gives the entrepreneurs that want to make a living maybe outside of India as well as attract people because of the trustworthiness of the name to feel comfortable buying online. We see more and more Indians today buying online than ever.
Q: You are here in India at a time when the telecom 3G spectrum auctions are taking place in India, it is very interesting merely because broadband WiMax spectrum is going to be made available, what is your own understanding of reaching out to the unreached Indians that is where the Internet is not penetrated and what kind of potential do you think that side, the larger untapped potential is there?
A: Only about 8 million Indians today are actually using broadband. So these auctions we believe will be very good for eCommerce in general. But more importantly I think mobile is going to continue to just be a huge trend in India as it is across the globe.
There are over 540 million handsets today that are out there. In fact it is one of our largest categories on eBay today in India. We see that there is just amazing opportunity both within the business. We are working on mobile applications within India as well as globally. Our mobile business is growing very rapidly. We did USD 600 million last year on mobile applications and we will do over USD 1.5 billion this year.
For exclusive video visit: http://indiaearnings.moneycontrol.com/videos/videos.php?autono=452194
