eBay no longer just an Auction Site
It’s now official from the lips of the CEO himself – eBay is no longer an online auction house, but in future will be an ecommerce platform provider with a simple, unified vision: to connect buyers and sellers. This does of course mean connecting Landlords and Tenants, as well as every other commercial exchange using the internet. A bold vision, and a dramatic departure for those who think of eBay as just “Auctions Online”. Is it too far fetched to imagine that in the future all privately rented property will be rented through eBay?
Renting Flats in London
Currently if you want to rent a flat or studio in london you have 2 markets to look in – let through agents or directly from a landlord. eBay is already one of the biggest players in the direct market through it’s wholy owned subsidiary Gumtree the leading advertiser of direct letting, and it’s minority stake in Craig’s List the second biggest advertiser in the sector. eBay already controls the market for Landlords advertising flats in London, so would it’s next step be to integrate financial services with it’s listings in a similar manner to the way Auction payments are integrated with PayPal?
Security of payment is a key issue for landlords as the sums involved are so great. This has been emphasised by the recent changes to legislation that has effectively made the deposit useless to landlords as a tool for gaining financial security. Paypal is uniquely positioned to be the engine that powers global e-commerce and Internet payments connecting to all the traditional financial systems – 27 financial networks and more than 15,000 local banks around the world, 70 million active accounts and represents 9 percent of ecommerce globally. PayPal expect to significantly increase revenue from $2.4 billion in 2008 to $5 billion in 2011.
It wouldn’t stretch the imagination to combine these visions of the future from eBay to a scenario where the advertising & letting of a property became a seamless activity with eBay at it’s core. eBay is already the key player in the London Rental Market and it’s core technologies involve enabling transactions between parties, providing vetting of the parties via it’s unique feedback system, and enabling a secure financial transaction. It has expertise in the areas that Landlords have a need.
Only one Place to Rent
Now if I can see how the jigsaw pieces fitting together, you can be sure that in eBay Towers some IT architect has drawn up the blue print. It may well be that in the next decade when you rent a flat you’ll be renting it through eBay, with your financial track record with the eBay Paypal monolith a deciding factor for the Landlord in whether to enter into a tenancy with you, and Paypal the only payment option allowed.
Sources
EBAY INC. PORTFOLIO ROADMAP PREVIEW BY JOHN DONAHOE
