EBay cuts 40 local jobs and sets up shop with PC Home

EBay Inc, the world's largest online auctioneer, laid off 40 workers as the company transferred its local operations to a venture it is forming with PC Home Online (網路家庭).

The new Internet auction company will be run by PC Home, leaving San Jose, California-based eBay with no day-to-day operations in Taiwan, Angel Cheng (成葆齡), an eBay spokeswoman in Taipei, said by telephone yesterday.

EBay still has 10 employees in the nation to help to integrate its services with those of PC Home, she said.

EBay and Taipei-based PC Home, which previously competed for users in the local Internet market, will form a co-branded auction Web site offering services designed for local consumers. A lack of services focused on local markets has hurt eBay in Asia, said Chen Haiying, an Internet analyst with Beijing-based research company Analysys International.

"More localized services will help eBay attract more users," Chen said.

Asian consumers, for example, tend to buy and sell new items instead of second-hand goods on auction Web sites, he said.

The Web site being built by eBay and PC Home is expected to be ready for operation before the end of this year. Details of the agreement were not disclosed.

PC Home was founded in 1998 and has more than 10 million users. The company had a 23 percent share of the online shopping market last year, making it the nation's biggest Internet retailer, according to Taipei-based research company Market Intelligence Center (市場情報中心).