RPT-EBay to deepen Facebook relationship
By Alistair BarrSAN FRANCISCO, Oct 11 (Reuters) - EBay Inc is set
to deepen its relationship with social network leader Facebook
at a developer conference this week, a person familiar with the
e-commerce company said on Tuesday.EBay will also unveil a new online identification service
for shoppers called PayPal Access, the person added.The company expects almost 4,000 people to attend its
X.commerce conference in San Francisco on Oct. 12, 13 and 14.
The event marks the official launch of the company’s new
X.commerce division, which will target e-commerce software
developers. [ID:nS1E78I0U3EBay is trying to encourage outside developers to create
applications for its e-commerce platforms and is making a
particularly strong push in mobile commerce.At the end of September, Katie Mitic, head of Platform and
Mobile Marketing at Facebook, joined eBay’s board of directors,
sparking speculation that the two companies were working on new
partnerships.Mitic is scheduled to be one of the keynote speakers at the
X.commerce conference on Wednesday. Facebook Platform, which
Mitic helps run, is the company’s developer unit, so any new
partnership will focus on this area, the person said on
condition of anonymity because the plans aren’t public yet.EBay and Facebook have an existing partnership the allows
the purchase of Facebook self-serve ads and Facebook Credits
using PayPal, eBay’s electronic payments system.”We believe a deeper partnership could be announced at the
conference,” Doug Anmuth, an analyst at JPMorgan, wrote in a
note to investors on Monday.PAYPAL ACCESSEBay’s new PayPal Access service will let users shop across
the Web using just their PayPal email credentials and password,
according to the person.The service will eliminate the need to type in credit card
information, billing and shipping addresses and any age
verification requirements, they said.Customers will be able to chose whether to activate PayPal
Access. Merchants who sign up for the service will only see
customers’ shipping addresses because PayPal has already
verified the other information, they added.Merchants may be attracted to PayPal Access because it
could encourage shoppers to complete purchases, rather than
giving up when they’re asked for a lot of information at
checkout.For eBay, the new service could encourage more merchants to
accept PayPal as a payment option.