eBay 2000 Annual Report Download - page 11

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Foster eBay Community AÇnity. eBay continues to enhance what is already the largest and one of the
most loyal online trading communities on the Web. By instilling a vibrant eBay community experience, eBay
seeks to maintain a critical mass of frequent buyers and sellers with a vested interest in the eBay community.
eBay believes that new community tools, such as About Me personal pages and threaded message boards will
continue to contribute to the community vibrancy. eBay's trust and safety initiatives, including user
veriÑcation, requirements for new sellers to have a credit card on Ñle, insurance, integrated escrow,
authentication and appraisal are intended to bolster eBay's reputation as a safe place to trade. Consistent with
its desire to foster community, eBay has organized a charitable fund, known as the eBay Foundation, and
involves the members of the eBay community in determining to which charitable purposes the eBay
Foundation's funds will be applied. See ""The eBay Service Ì Community Services.''
Enhance Features and Functionality. eBay intends to continually update and enhance the features and
functionality of the eBay and Half.com websites to ensure continuous improvement to the trading experience.
During 2000, eBay added many new features and services to help buyers and sellers trade with greater ease,
including a single login feature, smart search, counters for sellers, Highlight and Feature Plus!, integrated
photo hosting, ""List in Two Categories,'' a feature that allows users to cross merchandise their items in two
categories simultaneously, a pre-approve bidder tool that gives sellers the ability to set up their own pre-
qualiÑcation guidelines for bidders, and ""Buy It Now,'' a feature that allows buyers to purchase items
immediately and skip the auction process.
Expand Value-Added Services. In order to oÅer an end-to-end personal trading service, eBay provides a
variety of ""pre-trade'' and ""post-trade'' services to enhance the user experience and make trading easier. ""Pre-
trade'' services make listing items for sale easier and include photo hosting, authentication and seller
productivity software. ""Post-trade'' services make transactions easier and more comfortable to consummate,
such as payment facilitation, insurance, vehicle inspections, escrow, shipping and postage. eBay currently
provides, or will provide, these services directly or through strategic partnerships with third parties.
Value-added services introduced during 2000 include:
‚ the launch of eBay Picture Services, powered by iPIX, which provides eBay users with an easy-to-use,
robust set of imaging services that allow sellers to simply drag and drop images into image wells on the
eBay Sell Your Item form. Users may also preview their images on the Sell Your Item form and have
their images automatically resized and formatted for optimal viewing;
‚ the addition of Saturn and its retailers to provide a nationwide automobile inspection service. The new
inspection service, developed and oÅered by Saturn, is now part of eBay Motors and AutoTrader.com's
co-branded automobile site; and
‚ the integration of Keen.com, the Ñrst Live Answer CommunityTM, into key areas of eBay's online
trading platform. The integration is intended to make it more convenient for eBay's 22 million users to
contact Keen.com's members and get live answers to questions on many topics, including trading and
collectibles.
Continue to Develop United States and International Markets. eBay believes that the Internet provides a
signiÑcant opportunity for the creation of eÇcient trading platforms in local, national and international
markets and that over time, these platforms can be transformed into a seamless, truly global trading
environment. eBay intends to take advantage of this opportunity by developing eBay for selected local,
national and international markets and actively marketing and promoting these services. On the local level,
eBay has already rolled out local trading for 60 geographic regions in the United States and has launched a
similar regional service oÅering in Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The creation of
regional trading sites makes it easier and more practical to buy and sell items of local interest and items too
large, expensive or complex to eÅectively trade on a wider geographical level. eBay will continue to consider
the addition of regional sites in U.S. and international markets that oÅer a critical mass of users and a
signiÑcant electronic commerce opportunity. Internationally, eBay has introduced country-speciÑc services for
Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Japan, France, Austria, Italy and through the February
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