The Hindu Business Line : eBay targets B&C cities

eBAY, global trading platform with $3.3-billion in revenues, is eyeing entrepreneurs while targeting class B&C cities. It now has over one million users in India and 135 million globally.

Mr Gautam Thakar, Director, eBay, told Business Line that the company's brand identity has now changed to eBay in India following the completion of merger of Bazee and the operations have been fully integrated with the parent.

Data in India points that about 53 per cent of the total online trading is from metros and the rest comes from other centres. "With a trading platform like that of eBay, we expect that more people will take advantage of this and this mix could change over the next two-three years in favour of other centres," he explained.

Mr Thakar said there were over 4,30,000 entrepreneurs in the US alone making use of eBay, and if this is any indication, small traders, entrepreneurs would be able to make the most of this platform.

Given the free-trade era, Indian products and goods can actually be offered across all the 32 countries, where eBay reaches out.

"Given the online trade projections, which is set to grow to about Rs 2,300 crore by 2006 in India, and hosting about 30 million Internet users, this may look like a relatively small number given the country's population. However, if you analyse the numbers, this is a lot bigger than Australia, which is about 20 million people," he said.

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