---

eBay CEO John Donahoe told retailers gathered at the National Retail Federation's annual Shop.org summit in Las Vegas this week that the Skype deal will go through despite legal problems with the company's original founders. In a question-and-answer segment with Patti Freeman Evans, Vice President and Research Director at Forrester Research, he said, "We don't regret Skype one bit."

Mr. Donahoe said that eBay had believed Skype would facilitate connecting buyers and sellers, that eBay sellers would say "Skype Me" on their listings, that you would "Skype" money using PayPal. He said it turned out Skype's highest use was as a communications tool.

Mr. Donahoe also told Shop.org attendees that there were still synergies between PayPal and eBay, but "If and when I feel the businesses are better off separately, we'll do what we did with Skype."

Mr. Donahoe also talked about eBay's core values, and said, "we thought auctions was a religion. Auctions are nothing more than a format."

Visit the AuctionBytes blog for links to additional video clips of Mr. Donahoe's presentation at Shop.org and to comment on this story.

---

About the author:

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.

You may quote up to 50 words of any article on the condition that you attribute the article to EcommerceBytes.com and either link to the original article or to www.EcommerceBytes.com.
All other use is prohibited.

Sign up for our Email Newsletters


Email this story to a friend.

2 of 6