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Quote:The growth of its auction business turned an Internet upstart into a bellwether technology company and helped spawn a huge online economy. But now it's slowing down, sharply, confronting Chief Executive Meg Whitman's management team with its biggest challenge since eBay burst onto the scene a decade ago.

In last year's fourth quarter, the number of items listed for sale on its auctions and other marketplaces rose about 9.6%, far below the 28% year-over-year growth eBay posted in the comparable period of 2005, according to various analyst estimates. During the same time, the number of active eBay users rose 14%, only half the rate of a year earlier.

In important overseas markets like Germany, meanwhile, eBay's listings are in outright decline, according to some Wall Street analysts.

And it's not just the law of large numbers that's working against eBay. Whitman's efforts to boost the business, including a now-aborted push into China and a $2.5 billion acquisition of Skype, have run into severe headwinds...