eBay is top mobile retailer in US

eBay’s suite of 14 apps for mobile devices have made it the number one retailer in US mobile ecommerce. eBay expects mobile sales to account for around $1.5 billion this year; that’s around 3.3% of the US mobile sales market, and more than double the 1.5% claimed by Amazon, according to ABI Research.

Steve Yankovich, eBay’s vice president for mobile, says they are intending to release a new app every 5 weeks: he told SFGate “we pick and choose what will move the needle, and then we do it fast.” Picking the right platform also has a huge effect on the bottom line: users of the iPad typically spend three or four times more in a shopping spree than iPhone users.

Perhaps most interestingly for sellers, mobile use might be the saviour of auctions: last year when eBay released a mobile app alerting bidders on the state of auctions they were watching or bidding on, “sales shot up.” Yankovich says, “it was instant money.”