eBay 2003 Annual Report Download - page 5

Download and view the complete annual report

Please find page 5 of the 2003 eBay annual report below. You can navigate through the pages in the report by either clicking on the pages listed below, or by using the keyword search tool below to find specific information within the annual report.

Page out of 129

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • 15
  • 16
  • 17
  • 18
  • 19
  • 20
  • 21
  • 22
  • 23
  • 24
  • 25
  • 26
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • 41
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 47
  • 48
  • 49
  • 50
  • 51
  • 52
  • 53
  • 54
  • 55
  • 56
  • 57
  • 58
  • 59
  • 60
  • 61
  • 62
  • 63
  • 64
  • 65
  • 66
  • 67
  • 68
  • 69
  • 70
  • 71
  • 72
  • 73
  • 74
  • 75
  • 76
  • 77
  • 78
  • 79
  • 80
  • 81
  • 82
  • 83
  • 84
  • 85
  • 86
  • 87
  • 88
  • 89
  • 90
  • 91
  • 92
  • 93
  • 94
  • 95
  • 96
  • 97
  • 98
  • 99
  • 100
  • 101
  • 102
  • 103
  • 104
  • 105
  • 106
  • 107
  • 108
  • 109
  • 110
  • 111
  • 112
  • 113
  • 114
  • 115
  • 116
  • 117
  • 118
  • 119
  • 120
  • 121
  • 122
  • 123
  • 124
  • 125
  • 126
  • 127
  • 128
  • 129

or our commercial partners, services such as our global payments platform at PayPal.com, trust and safety
programs, user veriÑcation, buyer protection and assurance programs, postage and other shipping services,
vehicle inspections, escrow, authentication and appraisal are all intended to create a faster, easier and safer
trading environment.
Our Global Payments Platform
Our global payments platform, PayPal, enables any individual or business with an email address to
securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online. Through PayPal, we intend to accelerate the
velocity of trade on eBay and other online businesses by eliminating the various obstacles presented by
traditional payment methods. The service builds on the existing Ñnancial infrastructure of bank accounts
and credit cards and utilizes one of the world's most advanced proprietary fraud prevention systems to
create a safe, global, real-time payment solution. The platform has quickly become a global leader in
online payment solutions with over 40 million account members worldwide. Buyers and sellers on eBay,
online retailers, online businesses, and traditional oÉine businesses are transacting using our global
payments platform, which is available in 38 countries around the world. PayPal was acquired by eBay in
October 2002 and is now located in San Jose, California.
Our Community
Our community of users is the largest and one of the most loyal online trading communities on the
Internet. We have aggregated a signiÑcant number of buyers, sellers, and items listed for sale, which, in
turn, has resulted in an extremely vibrant trading environment. Our sellers enjoy generally high conversion
rates and buyers enjoy an extensive selection of broadly priced goods and services. Key components of our
community philosophy are maintaining an honest and open marketplace and treating individual users with
respect. We seek to maintain the satisfaction and loyalty of our frequent buyers and sellers by oÅering a
variety of community and support features such as announcement and bulletin boards, customer support
boards and personal pages, as well as other topical or category-speciÑc information exchanges. In addition,
through the PayPal global payments platform, we enable our community of eBay users, as well as the
users of other online trading platforms, to pay for their transactions securely, easily and quickly. By
applying a consistent set of policies and fees to our community, we have created a level playing Ñeld that
lets individuals and businesses of all types and sizes access broad markets and compete equally.
Our Value Proposition
Our online marketplace makes ineÇcient markets more eÇcient.
Traditional oÉine marketplaces can be ineÇcient because:
‚ They are fragmented and regional, making it diÇcult and expensive for buyers and sellers to meet,
exchange information and complete transactions;
‚ They oÅer a limited variety and breadth of goods;
‚ They often have high transaction costs due to intermediaries; and
‚ They are information ineÇcient, as buyers and sellers lack a reliable and convenient means of
setting prices.
We make these ineÇcient marketplaces more eÇcient because:
‚ Our global community of users can easily and inexpensively communicate, exchange information
and complete transactions;
‚ Our marketplace includes tens of millions of items creating a very wide variety and selection of
goods;
‚ We bring buyers and sellers together for much lower fees than traditional intermediaries; and
3