online auction

Leading Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba.com unveiled its plans to acquire Vendio Services Inc as a first step in its move to further expand in the global market.

Vendio Services, Inc. is an American Internet software as a service (SaaS) company that provides sales management software by subscription. A majority of customers use Vendio for its eBay auction management program and eBay applications.

Ranger Data Technologies and a group of 300 newspapers have joined under one roof to partner for the launch of a new online auction website that is meant to rival eBay and boost papers’ revenues. The website will be focused on local auctions.

John Donahoe, eBay CEO, told this week that its mobile application for Apple iPhone has been downloaded 10 million times which might bring $1.5 billion to $2 billion in transactions this year. Donahoe said that the iPhone app was responsible for $600 million in volume last year.

"The digital wallet is going to be a way that will facilitate e-commerce growth," Donahoe said at the All Things Digital conference on Wednesday.

70 cybercrooks were arrested by Romanian police this week on the allegations they used compromised eBay profiles to defraud buyers on the online auction.

After the cyber crooks obtained the login credentials of the legitimate users via phishing scam they used these trusted accounts to offer non-existent luxury goods. Buyers paid for the lots but never received these items.

Online marketplace company eBay has at last opened its local website for Russian users. The ecommerce giant has launched the system of international shopping eBay International Market (eIM). The company has translated not only the searching and lot interface into Russian, it also translated customer support and personal user area.

EBay has delayed the launch of Russian version of its online auction website. The launch date was moved from March 16th to 25th. The changed schedule is related to the visit of eBay director of business development Alina Prawdzik. The launch was timed to her arrival.

eBay announced that it is launching a new online retail platform in five European countries and Russia by the end of March which means that buyers will be able to make purchases in their own native language in those countries.

eBay is seeking to boost transactions on its websites by making them more user friendly. Shoppers in Russia, Greece, the Czech Republic, Norway, Denmark and Sweden will now be able to buy online in their native tongues.

Users in those states will also be offered PayPal payment system as an option to make transactions easier across the borders.

eBay was found liable for misleading customers by using misspelt versions of luxury brand Louis Vuitton as search engine key words to redirect users to Ebay website links. A Paris tribunal on Thursday ordered eBay to repay 200,000 euros ($275,800) in damages and 30,000 euros in legal costs incurred by Louis Vuitton.

Besides, eBay was also demanded to pay 1,000 euros in penalties every time it used search engine key words that "harmed the reputation of the Louis Vuitton brand."

The tense is growing between the German sellers and ecommerce giant eBay who has recently introduced the requirement that PayPal should be a compulsory payment option. The opposition mostly comes from the one-time sellers who have no regular place on eBay website.

The newly accepted rules specify that the sellers with the rating below 50 points should offer PayPal as the compulsory payment option to their clients. EBay claims that these measures will protect buyers against fraud as PayPal guarantees to return money if the seller failed to comply with their liability.

On Tuesday the ecommerce giant eBay announced that it stops charging upfront fees for some people who sell low-priced items and changes other parts of its fee system in the United States in a move to boost transactions on its website.

The company said that starting March 30 it eliminates fees on items with an auction start price of 99 cents or less, allowing sellers to list 100 items a month. The online auction company will be charging 9% of the final price or $50, whichever is less.

EBay Inc made a forecast for 2010 with the expected results beating analysts’ predictions. The company expressed its optimistic view after posting double-digit revenue growth in PayPal and its main online marketplaces unit which in turn sent its shares up 8%. Besides, eBay also beat Wall Street profit estimates in its holiday quarter.

EBay reported that the revenue at its main marketplace division increased 15% during the quarter. Gross merchandise volume was up 24%.

Online auction pioneer eBay reported that mobile transactions increased drastically this holiday shopping season as compared with the previous year. According to the company the volume of mobile transactions has increased three times with the current rate of unique mobile visits per day standing at about 750,000.

Interestingly customers do not just stop their purchases at cheap items. The company says that a 23-foot boat was recently sold for $19,108 and a Steinway grand piano was sold for $10,000.

 On Monday next week the legal battle between eBay and Craigslist resumes as a Delaware state court is to conduct a trial which will bring to the witness stand two Internet pioneers: former eBay Chief Executive Meg Whitman and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.

 Online tat bazaar ebay.co.uk was blocked for much of yesterday because OpenDNS wrongly labelled auction pages on the site as phishing pages.

Individual items, with addresses starting cgi.ebay.co.uk, were unavailable to anyone using the system, or using an ISP which uses the system.

Instead surfers saw this error message:

"Phishing Site Blocked Phishing is a fraudulent attempt to get you to provide personal information under false pretenses."

 Today, AuctionAnything.com, a pioneer in online auction software, announced the immediate availability of PayPal® payment integration into their online auction management platform. This new feature enables merchants to accept payments through the PayPal® service and expands on the traditional merchant account services already offered to clients.