An Older, Wiser EBay, Growing Patiently

LAS VEGAS EBay's big buying binge was the talk of its fifth annual user convention here this week, which pulled 15,000 sellers from around the world eager to learn what the Internet auction giant plans to do next.







"We are going to test different approaches with Yahoo over the next several months,"
sayz eBay CEO Meg Whitman.





While eBay Inc. is showing signs of a middle-age crisis, with slowing growth and a sliding stock price, company executives seemed almost giddy as they outlined plans to use their recent acquisitions to move beyond auctions -- into communications, advertising and financial services.

Wall Street has remained skeptical that eBay can recoup the $2.6 billion it spent last fall to acquire Skype, a young company that provides Internet-based calling services but brings in relatively little revenue. It was eBay's second major purchase last year, following its $620 million acquisition of Shopping.com. But chief executive Meg Whitman told convention-goers that she believes Skype's calling service will boost trade on eBay much the same way PayPal's payment service did after eBay bought that company several years ago.

EBay executives spent a fair amount of time talking up Skype; PayPal; and Shopping.com, the comparison-shopping service that eBay bought to expand its online marketing and advertising repertoire. They also tried to reassure their key customers -- the more than 1 million people who earn part or all of their living selling on eBay -- that auctions remain their core focus.

What struck me most about eBay's convention this year is how smartly and intensely the company is trying to improve online shopping by integrating new forms of advertising, payments and communication. EBay may not be growing as fast as it was, but it is growing shrewdly -- and in ways that are likely to have a major impact on the future of e-commerce.