Australians have been flocking to the online trading site in droves.
The onslaught of eBay and PayPal mobile shopping apps now available also helped bolster the sales high with Donahoe predicting $4 billion worth of goods to be sold through eBay.com’s mobile apps this year, double last years number.
The Smartphone apps were downloaded more than 30 million times in 2010 alone.
Its total merchandise volume by 11 per cent and revenues were up 9 percent to $26.94 billion, which it attributes to the effectiveness of its payment service PayPal.
Donohoe contributes these phenomenal figures to the mobile and Tablet revolution which is changing the way consumers shop, both where and when, with mobile shopping on the rise.
“Mobile is increasing the number of internet-enabled transactions, and in the process it is rapidly blurring the line between online and offline.”
This boost in e-purchases among consumers here comes as the major retailers have reported to the Productivity Commission, which is due to begin investigating the online sector next month, after the furore over GST being exempt for goods bought online from abroad for under $1000.
The retail protest group which includes the likes of Harvey Norman, Myer and Solomon Lew have presented a wish list to the government backed Commission, which includes reduced regulations on pay incentives and immigration, although they say the online elephant in the retail sector is starting to make too much of an impact on their business to be ignored.
“There is only one issue that is of real concern to us and that is the anomaly that the GST and tariff exemption has created,” David Jones boss Paul Zahra said.
“We now have an unlevel playing field, where Australian retailers — both online and bricks-and-mortar — are disadvantaged compared to offshore retailers.”
Gerry Harvey’s input into the conversation was notably absent, openly declaring his intention to keep schtum on the issue earlier this month due to angry reactions from consumers.
”Because of my profile, I then get all these threats and people hone in on me. It becomes me, Gerry Harvey and Solomon Lew – billionaires, greedy, ugly, old, out-of-date c—s, and the people writing this seem to think we have been ripping them off for years and that we deserve this.”
The UK and South Korea also joined Australians as eBay’s biggest users.
“We delivered a strong fourth quarter and a solid year,” marvelled eBay chief executive John Donohoe on announcing the results.
