eBay said it will test pop-up advertisements over the next few weeks. Some visitors to the eBay home page will be presented with a popup message when they leave the site from the home page. The pop-ups will feature links to merchandise or services on eBay as well as on other sites.

eBay said the primary goal of the ads is to offer compelling reasons for buyers to return to eBay. "We will evaluate this new tool to determine its effect on buyer behavior and will use the information that we gather from this test to create better merchandising programs in the future."

eBay's own revenue from accepting advertising declined in the first quarter of 2002.