eBay Acquires Sweden's Largest Auction Site Tradera

[mandy]

eBay Acquires Sweden's Tradera.com

San Jose, Calif. and Stockholm, Sweden, April 24, 2006 – eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) today announced that it has acquired Tradera.com, the leading online auction-style marketplace in Sweden. Together, the companies plan to expand online trading in Sweden and bring more opportunities to Swedish buyers and sellers.

Launched in 1999, Tradera.com enables auction-style trading for buyers and sellers throughout Sweden. Tradera.com has more than 750,000 listings at any given time and offers a venue where buyers and sellers can trade across an array of categories, from collectibles and home decor to antiques and electronics. eBay Sweden, focused on both auction-style and fixed-price trading, launched in April 2005.

"Tradera.com has built an impressive business in Sweden," said Philipp Justus, senior vice president and general manager of eBay Europe. "An e-commerce pioneer with a strong community focus, Tradera is a natural fit with eBay."

"Our partnership with eBay validates Tradera.com's success and position in the industry," said Jonas Nordlander, managing director of Tradera.com. "By joining forces, Tradera and eBay can help provide Swedish consumers with more opportunities to trade on a national and international basis."

Increasingly popular among Swedish consumers, online shopping is showing strong signs of growth. Business-to-consumer e-commerce in Sweden reached $4.8 billion in 2005, and that number is expected to grow to $15.7 billion in 2009, according to IDC's Internet Commerce Market Model, January 2006.

"We're excited to welcome Tradera.com to the eBay family," said Fredrik Ahlberg, managing director of eBay Sweden. "Tradera has helped pave the way for online trading in Sweden and we believe Tradera can help us create the best shopping experience for local buyers and sellers."

eBay has acquired all equity securities of Tradera.com for approximately 365 million Swedish Kronor, plus acquisition costs and an adjustment for net cash acquired. Based on an April 21, 2006 exchange rate of SEK7.56 to US$1.00, the net purchase amount approximates US$48 million. eBay does not expect the acquisition to have a material impact on its financial guidance as issued in connection with its first quarter earnings release on April 19, 2006.

Tradera's investors include Provider Funds and TIME Vision bpart AB.

About Tradera.com
Tradera.com was founded in 1999 and has grown to become the leading online auction site in Sweden. Tradera.com offers a marketplace for auctions including everything from collector's items such as watches and jewelry, to consumer goods such as computers, electronics and leisure gear.

http://investor.ebay.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=193649&FYear=

[xppman]

I thought Meg said they were going to stop making purchases
so they could "absorb and adjust" (or some words along those lines) .


Right now on TV (Csapn) Robert Bradley (Former Enron Director of Public Policy Analysis)  is taking about how they purchased to many other business that failed and stretched their operations out to far, and that is what has had the impact on them and why they are where they are now.

He also defending Ken right now too.  LOL

How ironic.

[bargainbloodhound]

I really liked (notice the past tense) Tradera, but I'm sure it will become a glitch-ridden POS within no time now that eBay has bought it. 

Tradera was kicking eBay.se's ass by a mile, sooo...I'm wondering whether eBay will keep the Tradera name (like they did when they bought MercadoLibre and Marktplaats) and merge eBay Sweden into the Tradera site, or whether they'll do the dumb thing and drop the Tradera name and merge it into the smaller eBay Sweden.  Either way, number three QXL.se is now toast as a result of this merger because it can't compete with the combined eBay.se/Tradera.

[xppman]

What I don't get is that it seems ebay does not see that it's
BRAND and reputations is so tarnished.

Or maybe it does. So in order to keep up it's revenue streams
Meg feels she must monopolize the world and
will continue to buy buy buy and try to FORCE everyone to use
any of the services they keep buying up.

Seems to me from a layman's prospective that
Meg and team have really went off the deep end and their entire house
of cards could be in more trouble than they are letting on about.

A lot of this stuff is starting to look more like PANIC PURCHASES than sound investments.

This "if you can't beat em buy" attitude with ebay has got to
catch up with them sooner or later.

They need to look inward and ask themselves WHY CAN'T WE BEAT THEM?

But again they may already know why, but are to
arrogant to change direction to repair their own true internal shortcomings.

[bargainbloodhound]

What I don't get is that it seems ebay does not see that it's
BRAND and reputations is so tarnished.

I think eBay might know it to some extent, or at least it knows its brand isn't wanted in some places.

When they first bought the Netherland's largest (classified) site Marktplaats they put "Marktplaats, an eBay company" logos on the top of every page.  There was a lot of local resentment that a foreign company had bought the Netherlands crown (ecommerce) jewel, and so eBay has now removed the "owned by ebay" from the logo and the only eBay mention is a tiny banner at the bottom of the page that leads to eBay.nl.  The only way you know Marktplaats is owned by eBay is if you go to their "work at Marktplaats" page and then you'll see that its owned by eBay.

front page: http://www.marktplaats.nl
jobs at Marktplaats page: http://kopen.marktplaats.nl/search.php?ui=237239

If they try to force the eBay brand on Tradera users I think they'll receive the same "local resentment that a foreigner is intruding" that they received in the Netherlands, and that was in large part responsible for them losing out to home-grown sites in New Zealand, Poland, and China (Alibaba's CEO says eBay lost in China so I'll take his word for it.   ).

[iron_chick]

[quote author=xppman link=topic=3496.msg12946#msg12946 date=1145886364]
I thought Meg said they were going to stop making purchases
so they could "absorb and adjust" (or some words along those lines) .

[/quote]

That's what I remember hearing just a few months ago.
No new purchases in 2006 - just an emphasis on making what eBay already has work!  (OK, Meg didn't use quite those words, but that was the gist of it!)

[sneakymagenta]

They already put an 'en del av eBay' logo on Tradera  :o

http://www.tradera.com/