Michael Guta says, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming part of our everyday language as more organizations integrate the technology into the products and services they offer. The latest to do so is eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY), which according to the company will help its sellers become more competitive. eBay Deploys Artificial Intelligence Solutions The company has been supporting its sellers, many of whom are small to medium sized businesses, with AI driven investments for the past five years. To date, it has been embedded and distributed across 30 domains to help sellers with everything... [...]

Shelly Banjo says, “Investors cheered a fourth consecutive quarter of sales increases, and maintaining a full year of gains helped quiet concerns that without PayPal Holdings Inc., the subsidiary it split from in 2015, eBay would be left for dead. It’s no time for self-congratulatory pats on the back, though. Growth initiatives touted by eBay management during its earnings call last week, such as ramping up millennial-focused TV advertisements and making it easier for consumers to find new stuff on its sites, just aren’t aggressive enough to match eBay’s grand ambitions... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “eBay announced they are now serving over eight million pages using AMP, Google’s accelerated mobile project initiative. This is the first major non-news site that has deployed AMP widely in a production setting. eBay said deployed it for many product and category-based pages for mobile only. They even gave example URLs of the pages that support it, including this one and this one. eBay said you can add the amp/ parameter to any browser URL when you are on the mobile site and you should see the AMP version. Here are examples of the URL: Not AMP: http://m.ebay.com/sch/16GB-iPhone-5s-Smartphones/9355/bn_341667/i.html AMP:... [...]

Shubhomita Bose says, “eBay’s efforts to revamp its business are paying off, as the company has reported better-than-expected results in the first quarter. The online retail giant has posted a 5 percent revenue increase, beating analyst expectations. Following the announcement, eBay shares rose 2.1 percent to $24.98 in extended trading. The solid results will give eBay the much-needed boost it needed to regain investors’ confidence. eBay Q1 Earnings Up: Main Highlights Some of the key takeaways of eBay’s first quarter results include the following: – Gross merchandise volume... [...]

Zak Stambor says, “EBay is among the first e-commerce companies to join the FIDO Alliance, an industry group developing new authentication standards. EBay Inc. is looking to a future in which consumers no longer have to enter a password to sign into an e-commerce site. The online marketplace has joined the Fast Identity Online Alliance (FIDO), an industry consortium that aims to develop standards for simpler yet stronger authentication. FIDO’s members include such companies as Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd., Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., PayPal Inc. and Visa Inc. The FIDO Alliance is trying... [...]

Lisa Froelings says, “At the Goldman Sachs Technology and Media Conference in San Francisco on Feb. 10, Wenig revealed that the company is thinking more as a merchandiser or retailer, instead of just an open marketplace. “We’re changing from an unstructured to highly structured marketplace,” said Wenig. “The brilliance of eBay’s model is its greatest challenge. It’s a friction free marketplace, which means sellers can sell anything they want, and that makes it complicated.” eBay, the huge online auction house for hard-to-find items and antiques, used clothing and cars, has... [...]

Fareeha Ali says, “The online marketplace increased the number of active buyers. The gross value of goods sold on eBay Inc.’s marketplace fell 1.0% to $20.68 billion in the fourth quarter that ended Dec. 31 compared with $20.88 billion in the same period a year ago, the online marketplace reported Wednesday. It was eBay’s first holiday season without payments services firm PayPal, which in July spun off as a separate company. Net revenue for eBay’s marketplaces fell 2.4% to $8.582 billion from $8.79 billion a year ago. Fluctuations in the value of foreign currencies affected gross... [...]

Zak Stambor says, “EBay Enterprise says the move will give far more tools to the retailers who work with its affiliate marketing program, which has 59 retailer clients in the Internet Retailer Top 1000. EBay Enterprise Marketing Solutions has acquired AffiliateTraction, an affiliate technology vendor that counts such retailers as Fathead LLC, Skechers USA Inc., Guess Inc. and American Apparel Inc. among its clients, the companies said today. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. EBay Enterprise also announced that AffiliateTraction CEO and president Greg Shepard will assume the role... [...]

JP Mangalindan says, “eBay CEO John Donahoe was visibly agitated one March afternoon in 2014, as he slowly paced the length of a small conference room at eBay’s San Jose headquarters. The 6-foot-5 chief executive was in his usual work uniform — relaxed dress shirt and dark trousers — and that classic, controlled Donahoe ‘do: thick hair parted to the right side, evoking a young Ted Kennedy. Only, on that day, the side part wasn’t so tidy, the dress shirt not so crisp. “PayPal has enormous potential, and we are completely capable of driving that potential,” Donahoe... [...]

Jason Del Rey says, “Here come the turf wars. Ahead of eBay’s planned split into three separate companies, its core shopping business has cut off its eBay Enterprise unit from selling ads on eBay’s websites and mobile apps, according to multiple sources. The eBay Enterprise unit sells e-commerce and logistics services to midsize and large retailers, but also has a marketing division that helps these retailers advertise online. Until this year, the Enterprise unit was able to buy ad space on eBay on behalf of some of its retail clients. But no longer. Now, the Enterprise unit can only use... [...]