eBay Bids For Younger Auction Crowd

 

eBay is starting to go after teenagers’ wallets, teaming with social-networking sites to lure younger customers. eBay is working on launching a feature for visitors to social-networking company Bebo Inc., which caters largely to teenagers. Bebo users would be able to use the site to post lists of items they want to sell or buy on eBay. Clicking on an item on the list would send Bebo users to eBay, bringing eBay a potentially lucrative stream of new visitors. The majority of Ebay’s users now are 35 to 44 years old. This is just one of several overtures that eBay has recently made to social-networking Web sites. EBay has also been talking to MySpace, the biggest social-networking site, which counts teens and 20-somethings among its core user base, about ways to partner on “peer commerce,” say people familiar with the matter. In January, eBay also made a deal with Facebook Inc., another large social-networking site aimed primarily at college-age users.