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eBay users everywhere were pleased when the company gave up on making PayPal the only allowable payment option in Australia.  But Hitwise has taken a look at the company's standing on that continent, underlining what was (and may still be) at stake within its borders.

eBay does pretty well as a part of Hitwise's Shopping & Classifieds category, receiving about 29 percent of all hits.  Sandra Hanchard notes, "Visits to the online Auctions industry are in fact particularly high in Australia.  Auctions websites accounted for 38.11% of visits to all Shopping & Classifieds websites in May 2008 in Australia, compared to 21.35% by U.S. Internet users."

 eBay On Top (And Middle) In Australia
(Photo Credit: Hitwise)

Then, within that Auctions subset, eBay cleans up.  eBay Australia, eBay.com, eBay UK, and eBay Motors own the first, second, fifth, and sixth spots, respectively, on a list of the top ten Australian auction sites.  And eBay Australia alone has a market share of 72.69 percent.

So if eBay had gone through with its PayPal-only plan, it would have either profited off its huge audience or sent said audience to the dozen nearest competitors.  Given the anger expressed over eBay's plan, competitors may actually wish the thing had been implemented.

There's still the chance that eBay did some permanent damage to its reputation, though, as Hanchard found that a new rival and an old one are doing surprisingly well.  She states, "Trading Post Online debuted at 3rd position (week ending 14/06/08) when it launched its auctions service and accounted for 3.78% share of visits during the week ending 28 June 2008.  Oztion Auctions followed with 2.53% market share, reaching its highest point ever during the week ending 28 June 2008."