eBay launches Australian shopping.com
Published May 22nd, 2006
eBay, the world’s largest online auction house, will launch an Australian version of its US online retail enterprise, shopping.com.
More than 200 merchants have signed up. They include Dick Smith, Apple Computer, Dell, Peter’s of Kensington, Deals Direct and Strawberrynet.
Lorrie Norrington, president and chief executive of shopping.com in the US, led the Australian launch. She said that while the Australian market looked small compared with the US, “there are heaps of opportunities here”.
Shopping.com, founded in 1999, was originally called DealTime and focused on price comparison. In 2003, it merged with ePinions, which provided consumer reviews of products.
Its staff is mainly in San Francisco, with programmers in Israel and another in Britain, where it opened for business in 2001. In 2004 the company listed on the Nasdaq and last year it was bought by eBay and expanded into France and Germany.
Australia is its fifth branch.
