One of the casualties of the Walmart-Flipkart deal was eBay. After eBay merged with Flipkart as part of the latter’s fundraising process last year, it has cut ties with Flipkart following the Walmart deal.
eBay, which announced that it will soon relaunch operations independently is reportedly in talks with several other ecommerce players. If reports are to be believed, ShopClues could be one possible destination for eBay. If the talks succeed, eBay might end up in the lap of ShopClues.
Reports emerging out of eBay, however, indicate that eBay would rather make its own moves trying to turn itself into a cross-border seller of products online, on the lines of players like Ali Express of the Alibaba Group of China. In terms of the funding, eBay would have virtually doubled its investment in Flipkart of $500 million when it pockets $1.1 billion once Walmart releases the funds in fulfillment of the deal.
From the Flipkart perspective, the company has already issued an internal circular that beginning August 14, all transactions by customers with eBay would be stopped and the listings of refurbished stuff will all be shifted to a new platform.
eBay is still very upbeat about the prospects for online business in India and feel there is room for multiple players big and small. They would want to stay put here and although eBay’s full strategy has not been revealed, the site may be independently revived and products posted for sale. They may feel they are capable of winning back a part of the 4-million strong customer base they enjoyed before being merged with Flipkart.
“We plan to relaunch eBay India with a differentiated offer to focus initially on the cross-border trade opportunity, which we believe is significant. We believe that there is huge growth potential for e-commerce in India,” ET quotes eBay spokesperson as saying.