EBay plans to focus more on getting small businesses to buy and sell items on its online marketplace, CEO John Donahoe said Wednesday in announcing the company’s first-quarter earnings that beat analyst expectations.


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Background: “What Ebay Spinning off PayPal Means to Small Business


Donahoe was trying to address investor concerns about how the auction and marketplace portion of the company will fare later this year after the company spins off PayPal, long been EBay’s fastest-growing segment.

Devin Wenig, who will be CEO of eBay after the spinoff, told analysts the company will focus on growing its 25 million sellers and 157 million active buyers by focusing on small merchants that make of 70 percent of the global retail market.

EBay is a “partner, not a competitor,” to those businesses, said Wenig.

(Photo: Ryan Fanshaw, CC BY-ND 2.0)

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