eBay 2012 Annual Report Download - page 7

tastes. These and other acquisitions are intended to enhance existing services and deliver new services to merchants and consumers by using
innovative technology and improved experiences across multiple channels of commerce.
Our Marketplaces platforms bring consumers and merchants together through online websites and mobile applications that are generally
available throughout the world at any time, including through localized eBay.com sites in many countries. We had more than 112 million active
users at the end of 2012, compared to more than 100 million at the end of 2011. The term active user means, as of any date, any user who bid on,
bought or listed an item on any of our Marketplaces trading platforms, excluding users of Half.com, StubHub, and our Korean subsidiary, during
the preceding 12-month period. A user may have more than one account on our Marketplaces trading platforms and therefore may be counted
more than once when we calculate the number of active users.
Our Marketplaces platforms offer the following features:
We provide a variety of access points for consumers to shop virtually anytime, anywhere.
Our Marketplaces platforms are accessible through a traditional online experience and from mobile devices. We offer downloadable,
easy-to-use mobile applications for the iPhone, the iPad, Android and Windows mobile devices for eBay.com and some of our other websites
and vertical shopping experiences, including StubHub, Fashion, Motors and Half.com. We also maintain a mobile version of our eBay.com
website for use on mobile devices and continue to develop our mobile applications on an ongoing basis. In 2012, nearly $13 billion in mobile
commerce volume was transacted across our platforms, more than doubling our prior year's mobile commerce volume.
We offer a number of buying and selling formats, including fixed price and auction.
Merchants and individuals can choose to list their products and services through fixed price listings and an auction-style format on
eBay.com, our core Marketplaces platform. Our fixed price format on eBay.com allows buyers and sellers to close transactions at a pre-
determined price set by the seller, but also allows sellers to signal that they would be willing to close the transaction at a lower price through the
Best Offer feature. Our auction-style format allows a seller to select a minimum price for opening bids. Additional options and features
applicable to auction listings include the ability to set a Reserve Price and the Buy It Now feature. The duration of auctions typically ranges from
one to ten days. In 2012, our fixed price listing format continued to increase in popularity on eBay.com, accounting for approximately 66% of
our gross merchandise volume, or GMV, with our auction-style format accounting for the remaining approximately 34% of GMV. We define
GMV as the total value of all closed items between users on our eBay Marketplaces trading platforms (excluding eBay's classifieds websites,
brands4friends and Shopping.com) during the applicable period, regardless of whether the buyer and seller actually consummated the
transaction. Merchants and individuals can also list their products and services on our classifieds websites or our other specialized vertical
websites, as discussed below.
In addition, our eBay Stores format enables merchants to exhibit all of their listings in a single place on one of our Marketplaces platforms
and to describe their respective businesses through customized pages. eBay Stores also provides merchants with tools to build, manage, promote
and track their businesses.
Our classifieds websites have listings in over 1,000 cities around the world and are primarily designed to help people list their products
and services primarily for free and then trade at a local level. Our classifieds websites include alaMaula, BilBasen, dba.dk, eBay Classifieds
(eBay Classifieds, eBay Kleinanzeigen and eBay Annunci), Gumtree, Kijiji, LoQUo, Marktplaats.nl, and mobile.de. In addition, we have a non-
controlling equity investment in craigslist, Inc., which operates the craigslist classifieds websites.
We offer a variety of specialized vertical formats.
We continue to customize our buying and selling experiences to make it easier for users to list, find and buy items by offering formats
dedicated to specific products or categories. On our core eBay.com websites, we have built specialized experiences for certain vertical formats,
such as Daily Deals, Fashion, Motors (vehicles, parts and accessories), and Electronics. Our Daily Deals vertical offers a variety of products in
multiple categories at discounted prices with free shipping. In our Fashion vertical we offer our Fashion Vault, Fashion Outlet and an application
for mobile devices enabled with social media and email sharing functions. In our Motors vertical we offer users shopping tailored to their
vehicles specifications, including the Tire Center and Wheel Center, among others. In our Electronics vertical, we offer user reviews, similar
item listings, and instant sale feature to help users list and find items more easily.
5