tag:,2009:/1/tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.12083- 2009-11-23T18:10:44Z Comments for EBay Buys Bill Me Later and DBA - Lays Off 1,000 Movable Type 4.23-en tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.12083 2008-10-06T16:09:45Z 2008-10-06T16:28:53Z EBay Buys Bill Me Later and DBA - Lays Off 1,000 EBay today announced that it will acquire U.S. based online payments business Bill Me Later and the Danish classifieds site dba.dk. For Bill Me Later, eBay paid approximately $820 million in cash and $125 in outstanding options, while it acquired the Danish sites for $390 in cash. At the same time, eBay also announced that... Frederic Lardinois billmelater_logo.pngEBay today announced that it will acquire U.S. based online payments business Bill Me Later and the Danish classifieds site dba.dk. For Bill Me Later, eBay paid approximately $820 million in cash and $125 in outstanding options, while it acquired the Danish sites for $390 in cash. At the same time, eBay also announced that it plans to reduce its workforce by 10 percent.

]]> Bill Me Later, which is based in Maryland, launched in 2003 and Amazon, one of eBay biggest rivals, invested in it in 2007. While it doesn't have the name recognition of Paypal, Bill Me Later actually has a larger market share than PayPal and has a number of very large clients, including various airlines, Amazon, TigerDirect, and Apple. According to Gartner, Bill Me Later has seen triple-digit growth in the last few years.

dba_dk_sshot.pngDba.dk is Denmark's largest online classifieds and auctions site and has been able to challenge eBay in its own market.

Fewer Auction - More Direct Transactions

EBay's move to acquire classifieds sites and payment services is part of the company's strategy of putting less emphasis on auctions and more on direct transactions. EBay is currently in a bit of a slump and its workforce reduction is clearly meant to keep cost under control while the company restructures its business.

Bill Me Later company profile provided by TradeVibes

]]> tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.12083-comment:112998 Comment from tomloveland.myopenid.com on 2008-10-06 tomloveland.myopenid.com Bill Me Later is headquartered in Timonium, MD with additional offices in Hunt Valley, MD and San Francisco, CA. Bill Me Later is offered through CIT Bank, Salt Lake City, Utah.

]]> 2008-10-06T16:40:40Z tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.12083-comment:113004 Comment from Fabian Schonholz on 2008-10-06 Fabian Schonholz http://www.fabianschonholz.com This is an interesting development!! So eBay now has both online payment systems under the same umbrella. Wouldn't this trigger an anti-monopolistic investigation?

]]> 2008-10-06T16:55:32Z tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.12083-comment:113017 Comment from JulesLt on 2008-10-06 JulesLt Looks like an opportunity for someone to set up a good customer friendly auction site, appealing to the clientele that helped build ebay.

It seems weird to want to drive ebay into being a commodity b2c e-commerce platform when there are so many out there, and they don't even offer a particularly good one (just a big marketplace).

I presume 10% less staff means even poorer support than they already offer too.

]]> 2008-10-06T20:18:33Z tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.12083-comment:113037 Comment from nullvoidzero on 2008-10-06 nullvoidzero ha! i just hope all the billmelater developers get canned. a bunch of useless arrogant jerks.

]]> 2008-10-07T02:25:49Z tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.12083-comment:113231 Comment from Mark Evans on 2008-10-08 Mark Evans http://www.markevanstech.com What's interesting about Bill Me Later is that its origins go back to Nortel. You can read about it here: http://tinyurl.com/billmelater

Mark

]]> 2008-10-08T14:01:13Z tag:www.readwriteweb.com,2008://1.12083-comment:114336 Comment from Corpus Gray on 2008-10-18 Corpus Gray http://cerebralgebra.blogspot.com/ "...while it acquired the Danish sites for $390 in cash."

Did I read right?
$390? :-o

]]> 2008-10-18T16:22:11Z