EBAY ENTERS CANADIAN MARKET
By Adnews Staff
Online auction site eBay, based in San Jose, California, is expanding north of the border with a Canadian site at <http://www.ca.ebay.com>. The new site is designed to encourage buying and selling between eBay users in Canada. Features include price listings in Canadian dollars, 3,500 categories of goods such as beer merchandise, Inuit Art and CASCAR racing memorabilia, as well as services such as insurance and Canadian customs and shipping information. The Canadian site is the latest addition to the network of international eBay sites already present in Japan, Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom. Alexis Maybank of eBay's international marketing group is focusing on the Canadian site. She said promotion is taking place on several different levels all handled in-house. PR initiatives are being supported with a direct mail campaign to eBay users, online marketing with unnamed partners and marketing initiatives on a local basis. All promotion for the Canadian site is being handled in-house. Maybank also said that eBay expects to have a Canadian office, headquarted in Toronto, open by the end of the year.