may be the first place people turn to for Web search, but the head of
eBay's mobile efforts, Steve Yankovich, hopes to make eBay the first
place that people look on their phones when searching for a product to
buy.
"I want to replace Google as the de facto 'Where do I start,'" he said.
Yankovich,
who's been with eBay for less than a year-and-a-half, is hoping to
bring the company's mobile offerings from behind the times to the
cutting edge.
Until the middle of last year, eBay users couldn't
make a purchase from their mobile phones. They could bid on auctions,
but if they won they had to pay later. There was no option to purchase
non-auction items immediately, either.
By the middle of last year, however, eBay users could buy items directly from a mobile eBay site or applications
like the one for the iPhone. By the end of 2009, customers had bought
US$600 million worth of products from their mobile phones, Yankovich
said.
He has expanded the team of people working on mobile
products at eBay from just a few to 15. They have released an iPhone
application for people interested in fashion and plan additional apps
for other categories like sporting equipment, consumer electronics,
motors and collectibles. EBay also offers mobile apps for Android and BlackBerry phones.
In
addition, eBay plans to incorporate selling capabilities into the next
version of its primary iPhone application. Today those selling features
are part of a separate app. Since the primary application has been
downloaded 12 million times, eBay expects the new version to encourage
many more people to sell from their phones, he said,
The company will also launch a "motors app" later this year that will
let people use a built-in barcode-reader feature to scan the Vehicle
Identification Number of a car and do a Carfax lookup. The app will also
let users enter the make and model of their own car and then filter
searches for compatible parts and accessories.
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