eBay CEO John Donahoe conceded the domestic China market (again) to Alibaba today and said eBay would instead focus on the Chinese export market. Marketwatch said Donahoe called Alibaba not a competitor, but a "colleague and potential partner." eBay has also been also eyeing the global opportunity for PayPal, which it has said would outpace eBay in a few years.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Alibaba.com CEO David Wei is creating and testing software and services for Alibaba.com that can be used with online sales platforms such as eBay to recommend wholesale product listings to merchants. The company will use its acquisition of two U.S. eBay partners Auctiva and Vendio to explore opportunities to build an online model enabling Alibaba's customers to sell to eBay merchants for resale to consumers, he told the newspaper.
Online sellers use Auctiva and Vendio to help them list and promote items on eBay. The two third-party developers have increasingly focused on providing sellers with multi-channel tools as growth on eBay has slowed for their small-sized sellers.
Mr. Donahoe was in Hangzhou, China giving a keynote address at Alibaba's annual Alifest conference. His predecessor Meg Whitman had declined invitations to speak at the event when she ran eBay. She had famously proclaimed that whoever won in China, would win the world - before she lost her fierce battle with Alibaba's TaoBao C2C marketplace.
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