Last year, eBay's profits jumped 176%, to $250 million, on a 62% rise in sales, to $1.2 billion. That represents its commissions and fees on nearly $15 billion in gross merchandise sales. This year, analysts expect eBay's revenues to climb 60%, to $1.9 billion. Why is eBay thriving when so many other dot-coms have struggled? It continues to excel at its basic business proposition. "At our core," says CEO Margaret C. Whitman, "we help make inefficient markets efficient." In these tough times, that simple message resonates with just about everyone, from eBay's collectibles merchants to newer sellers such as IBM and Sears Roebuck, which are unloading everything from laptop computers to miter saws. What makes eBay unique is not just that it used the Internet to set up a virtual marketplace. Its customers, to a large extent, create the business. After an eBay manager noticed listings for real cars in its die-cast cars category, for instance, the company created a new category for them. Now, eBay's sales of more than 300,000 cars make it the largest U.S. used-car dealer online or off, surpassing even AutoNation Inc. And in January, after spying listings for restaurant gear and medical equipment, eBay opened a site aimed at the $1 trillion market for industrial goods. The company's next big push: taking its efficiency drive abroad. [Full Story: eBay Rules - BusinessWeek]
The head of eBay explains how it keeps growing by paying special attention to users' needs. Five years after she joined eBay as chief executive, Margaret "Meg" Whitman is scarcely seeing any slowdown in the online auctioneer's growth. Its profits last year soared 176%, to $249 million, on a 62% sales jump, to $1.2 billion. And despite the moribund economy and war in Iraq, it's expected to log $1.9 billion in sales this year, a 60% rise. The reason: The former Walt Disney and Hasbro executive has kept eBay focused on what it does best: Using its global marketplace to bring efficiencies to inefficient markets such as used, collectible, and overstocked goods. While eBay remains largely a place for small businesses and individuals to sell their wares, it's increasingly attracting the likes of Sears Roebuck, IBM, and Disney. Recently, Whitman talked with BusinessWeek Silicon Valley Bureau Chief Robert D. Hof about how eBay aims to make itself and its marketplace even more efficient. [Interview: Q&A with eBay's Meg Whitman - BusinessWeek]
At the ICANN meeting in Rio de Janeiro this week, a report enticingly named "Policies and Processes for Gaining and Losing Registrars" will if adopted - and it remains an "if" - competition in the market for global top-level domains such as .com, .org and .biz will receive a huge boost and domain owners will be granted rights they have long been denied. The report should ensure that domain registrars will no longer be able to abuse the system and prevent paying customers' efforts to move to a cheaper competitor. The report removes the losing registrar's current ability to stop any transfer by simply failing to acknowledge it. Instead, it will have to give good grounds for stopping a transfer. A transfer will thus go ahead if both the domain owner and the winning registrar agree and there is no complaint. Until now, some registrars have deliberately implemented an over-complex system for renewal - and occasionally nonsensical conditions - in order to either delay a transfer to beyond its expiry date or to make customers give up in frustration. [Full story: Is this the end of the domain transfer nightmare? - The Register]