by Jason Wilk on January 5, 2009
- Former eBay executive, Meg Whitman, is planning to run for governor of California in 2010. Whitman would be taking on two other highly touted Republican front-runners, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former Rep. Tom Campbell.
- What do we know about Whitman? Aside from making over $1 billion on her 2% stake in eBay, she has not fared well in popularity and success in the political scene. She most recently served as a national co-chair of McCain’s failed presidential campaign and previously had supported former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who lost to McCain in the GOP primary. Whitman was a supporter of the highly controversial Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban that passed in November going against many of her fellow tech executive comrades who were against stripping basic civil rights. Aside from politics, business hasn’t been a safe haven for Whitman either. Last January, she decided to step down from eBay after several years of poor decisions made for the auction giant. Many of the Ten Reasons Why we believe eBay to be dead have to do with decisions made by Whitman. It was a love/hate relationship with loyal eBay users and sellers throughout the several years that she was in charge. She left as the stock price was falling, and since she has left, the company has been doing even worse.
- Other factors not in Meg’s corner include: California has not fared well under Schwarzenegger and Barack Obama won the state in the Presidential election by a near record 24 percentage points. California’s are not likely to be looking for another Republican candidate to run the state. If an when she decides to run, she will join Democrat Al Checchi and Republican Bill Simon as wealthy business people who failed in their bids for California governor.
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by Jason Wilk on January 3, 2009
- Amazon.com, which fared the best out of all online shopping destinations this holiday season, has stopped supporting BillMeLater, eBay’s latest questionable acquisition which ran a bill of nearly $1 billion. It was widely speculated that Amazon would drop the ‘buy now, pay later’ service considering their move in the past to cut Paypal after eBay acquired it. Amazon now has their own payment system in place.
- Before eBay’s purchase of BillMeLater, Amazon had retained a 10% stake in the company. They had never held a board seat, thus their ties to it were limited beyond equity and good faith to use of the service.
- On Tuesday, Friedman Billings Ramsey said Amazon let merchant partners know about the change, which went into effect Wednesday. BillMeLater’s top customers without Amazon, still include OfficeMax, Apple, Newegg, and QVC.
- BillMeLater still has strong promise however without the giant retailer. Last year they had $31.6 billion in addressable sales, compared to $26.1 billion for PayPal. eBay couldn’t ignore those numbers as many speculated that BillMeLater could eventually surpass PayPal as the dominant payment processor on the web due to it’s ability to quickly process payments and instantly adjust credit ratings for consumers. Whether or not it succeeds in the long run, eBay could not ignore the acquisition which could have fell into the hands of a viable competitor, threatening one of their most profitable arms.
- We still speculate that eBay is on the fritz, however the company was the top destination traffic wise for the holidays with 85 million visitors compared to Amazon’s 76 million (ComScore).
- Was this a message from Amazon to eBay that competiton is heating up even more between the two giants?
by Jason Wilk on January 3, 2009
- Remember when Craigslist sued eBay? The following was back on May 13, 2008 of which there was no public resolution. What really happened?
We filed a complaint in California today, charging eBay with unlawful and unfair competition, misappropriation of proprietary information, deceptive passing-off, business interference, false advertising, phishing attacks, free-riding, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and breaches of fiduciary duty.We respectfully ask the Superior Court in San Francisco to enjoin this conduct and order eBay to (1) make full restitution to craigslist, (2) disgorge their related profits (3) restore to craigslist all shares of the company acquired by means of, or for the purpose of unfair competition, and (4) pay punitive damages for their malicious behavior. PDF here.
by Jason Wilk on January 3, 2009
- The first iPhone app to capture the full experience of Craigslist by NextMobile. Contains all the standard web features of Craigslist. See your history, post an advertisement directly from the phone, and even use the iPhone’s location to see craigslist entries nearby (this feature only for San Fransisco and Manhattan). The app is not availale on your phone yet, but if you go to this link on your iPhone you can download it for free. Very well done.
by Jason Wilk on December 13, 2008
- Hot off the Le Web Conference in Paris, where European entrepreneurs, start-ups and industry kings strut their stuff, news from the French eBay team led some to believe it’s on the fritz.
- eBay France has seen it’s share of problems, from a lawsuit in 2007 which attempted to get the site shut down for operating illegally, to dismal traffic since its inception (eBay.com recieves 70M visitors a month compared to France’s 140K). Rumor has it (coming from employees), the site is going to close along with other European eBay counterparts that share similar product from the French euro flagship.
- We have already talked about the 10 Reasons Why eBay Died, however I didn’t expect the company to be digging out it’s own graves so soon. We will see how this plays out in the next few weeks. Certainly a weak holiday season won’t help eBay in changing their decision.
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