eBay to expand into Jobs, Property and Travel

eBay.co.uk is looking to diversify its auction model into new business areas. It was revealed that the site was in talks with several big brands to support its move into Jobs, Property and Travel.

The site's "Motors" channel is its most successful niche development. Although eBay has tried to make a travel channel work in the past, they have decided to get help from one of the bigger travel companies in the UK (not XL holidays...) While eBay.com uses the excellent Expedia as a branded travel partner, the UK site is still out for tender. A joint revenue share will be available for the right company with a big enough brand and a capable development team.

Recruitment websites
As the recruitment and property markets have taken big financial hits recently, travel will be probably be the channel developed first. It will be interesting to see how a Jobs section will function with eBay's community.
I have worked on numerous recruitment websites and count myself as an expert at recruitment SEO and while each recruitment site works within its own niche, all sites function in more or less the same way so any new or original functionality would attract candidates.

The auction model won't need to be applied to each of the new channels and Buy It Now could be a good option for some of the products and services on offer. eBay will be quite flexible and will welcome creative ideas to provide a compelling service in these areas.

Travel websites
While several travel sites struggle with the volatile fuel prices, the biggest companies, Thomson and First Choice continue to achieve good levels of profit, this stems from the general lack of confidence in smaller travel companies after XL went bust and left 80,000 people stranded. eBay would want to work with a larger brand for this project too, so First Choice/Thomson would be most likely to begin the partnership with eBay.