CNN Money is one of many sites carrying a Reuters article on eBay's winning bid for Indian auction site : Baazee.com. The deal is reported to be worth USD 50 million, and will provide a strategic hold on the still nascent Indian market.
But the challenge for any would-be e-tailer in India is to encourage the use of the Internet for shopping. Most Indians still prefer to make purchases after seeing and touching products, and are reluctant to use credit cards for online purchases.
The Baazee deal is set to close in the third calendar quarter of 2004. EBay said it does not expect the deal to materially affect revenue and earnings per share results this year.
I hope that this also paves the way for better PayPal (an online payment site heavily used on eBay, and is also a subsidiary of eBay) support for Indian residents. The full story is available here.